Sister Hannah
by MyMelancholyBaby
Summary: When Hannah joined the convent of the Sisterhood of the Guardian Saint, she swore that she would dedicate her life to destroying creatures of Hell. Then John Winchester sold his soul to a demon. Then everything changed. John Winchester, Crowley OFC
1. Chapter 1

"Hello, Sister Hannah, a bit late for a walk, isn't it?" asked the middle aged Sister Agnes, smiling sweetly at the young woman as she passed.

"It is never too late to do God's work." Sister Hannah replied, minding herself to keep her tongue in check.

Sister Agnes was a busy body, a gossip and tattletale. No doubt she would go running to Sister Superior Penelope the second she got the chance. The old stick in the mud had never taken kindly to her.

Although, Sister Agnes did have a point. It was well past two in the morning.

Sister Agnes nodded, bowing her head in agreement to Sister Hannah's retort, yet pursed her lips in a way that seemed to be tasting the words she would spread to Sister Superior Penelope.

Let her.

Sister Hannah knew that no matter how much Sister Agnes wanted to get her kicked out of the convent, or at least out of her eyesight, Sister Hannah and Sister Superior Penelope both knew that she had earned her place in the Sisterhood of the Guardian Saints several times over.

As Sister Hannah half jogged up to her sparse room in the Convent, she began to strip and disarm as she went.

Neither she nor any other nun in the convent wore habits anymore. Ever since the 1960s, the Sisters wore everyday clothes. There were zero restrictions as to what a nun could and could not adorn her body with.

Some old guard Sisters, like Sister Agnes, would still don the conservative garb if given the option. But even the most liberal of the nuns raised their eyebrows when they met Sister Hannah.

Sister Hannah had tattoos. Her wrists were adorned with the tattoo images of rosary beads while her shoulder boasted a detailed tattoo of Jesus on the cross. Not to mention the various scrawls of Latin along various regions of her flesh.

And while the tattoos could be forgiven, her nose and eyebrow piercing failed to find justification more than the fact that Sister Hannah liked the way they looked.

Yes, vanity was a sin, but there were worse things on this Earth than that.

Sister Hannah knew better than anyone.

As she bolted the door behind her, she swept a line of salt against the doorframe. Pausing only to greet the one-eyed cat that was purring contentedly on her bed, Sister Hannah opened her gun case hidden in the back of her closet. She replaced the salt pellets and silver bullets, once again unsuccessful in killing whatever it was that was ensanguining the homeless population.

Not a vamp. Sister Hannah had it on good authority that vamps were extinct.

She didn't have a great deal of time to dwell on the idea before there was a knock on her door. She didn't have to bother asking who it was. Only one person in the convent talked to her regularly, and it wasn't any of the Sisters.

She wordlessly walked across the room and unlocked the dead bolt, the echoing click giving invitation to her visitor.

Father Thomas walked in, careful to not upset the salt line as he entered. He took in Sister Hannah's tank top and skinny jeans with raised eyebrows and nothing else. He sensed that she was irritable after a dead end of a hunt. At the very least, the elderly priest understood her.

"Nothing?" he asked, without preamble. He had given her the job, after all.

"No." she grumbled, slamming the knife that was strapped to her waist down on the table a little harder than was absolutely necessary.

"Are you sure?"

Sister Hannah knew that the Father would chastise her for the glare she shot at him, but in the moment, she didn't care.

"You can understand why I'm concerned." Said the Father evenly.

"If you're talking about the shifter, you can keep it to yourself. " Sister Hannah said, matching the Father's cool tone. They'd had this fight before.

"I'm talking about the crossroads demon."

"I've already explained that." Sister Hannah said, turning away from the priest as she pulled the breast knife from it's hiding. "Those people knew what they were doing when they went to her. They voluntarily gave their souls to Hell. They made their beds, let them lie in it."

"_Sister Hannah_" snapped Father Thomas, "You and I both know that it is never too late for people to be saved. How dare you speak against your fellow men in this house of God. "

The priest crossed himself, then gave Sister Hannah a look that told her quite plainly that he expected nothing less from her. The petulant nun dropped to her knees and prayed for her own forgiveness.

The priest nodded in approval as she stood.

"I trust your judgment and abilities." Said Father Thomas, "I know that you would never do anything to allow evil to continue to flourish here, on this Earth that God has given us to protect."

"No, Father." Lied Sister Hannah.

The Father gave another of his signature curt nods before turning on his heel and limping out of her room.

Sister Hannah waited a beat to hear his footsteps limp down the hall.

She turned to the only other companion in her room, the one-eyed cat, scooped him up and placed him outside her door, giving him a kiss on his furry, purring head as she did so.

Finally alone, the nun pulled the out bowl she had stashed under her bed.

She had been unsuccessful in killing the demon that she had been looking for, but she had been able to get the last of the ingredients that she needed.

Pulling the bone of the long deceased Sister Eloise Mary from a bag in her pocket, Sister Hannah had everything she needed.

She finished off her summoning spell with a drop of her own, virginal blood.

The room stayed silent, but Sister Hannah refused to let her guard down. She had seen and done enough to know that this spell would work.

"Well," said an accented voice from a corner of the room, "Two hundred years in business and I can still be surprised. This, my dear, is quite a first."

The demon man cast his eyes around the house of God before landing squarely back on the unconventional nun who had summoned him there in the first place.

"You're a hard demon to track down," Sister Hannah said.

"Yes. I am." He said flatly. "Are you going to kill me?"

He didn't sound frightened, but bored.

"We both know that I can't, Crowley."

He gave a crooked smirk.

"Are you going to keep me here, as a prisoner?" he asked, pointing with his chin towards the salt line.

Father Thomas had thought she had done it as a way to keep demons out. In reality, it was a precaution to keep this particular demon in.

"I probably couldn't do that either."

"No, you couldn't." he said simply.

"I need to make a deal." She said.

"You could do that with any old crossroads demon, you didn't need to interrupt my very busy night. "

"No, it had to be you."

Crowley sighed, getting bored of Sister Hannah's cryptic clues.

"I need to get into Hell."

Crowley raised his eyebrows.

"You _want _to get into Hell."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I need to find the soul of John Winchester. I've already heard that you can't pull a soul that has been sold to Hell up to Heaven. So, I want to go to him. Then we're going to break out."

Crowley smirked, amused by her honesty.

"Do you know how souls break out of Hell?" he asked.

Sister Hannah didn't reply.

"They come out as Demons." He said, smiling at the cruelty. "Why do you think anyone would ever go into the Pit? That's our little yellow brick road. There are traps, precautions. But those, those barriers separating there from here are nothing compared to the other Demons. Those motherfuckers will rip your delicate little soul to pieces, everyone fighting, tooth and nail, for a little freedom. Even Demons hate Hell."

"We could survive the pit without becoming Demons."

"You'd be the first."

"Then we'll be the first."

"So, what? You want me to take you into Hell?"

"And help us get back out."

"Why would I do that?"

"You're an ambitious kind of Demon. Are you really happy being Lilith's little sidekick?"

"It's comfortable." Crowley said, with a raised eyebrow.

"For now."

"And, what? You break out, not as Demons or anything that could actually be remotely helpful, and assist me to take over Hell?"

"Yes."

"Ok."

"What?" asked Sister Hannah, a little surprised that it had gone so quickly and smoothly.

"Deal." Said Crowley. "I accept your offer."

Now that the moment had come, Sister Hannah felt the first chill of regret, a twinge of doubt.

The demon stepped towards her.

She had spent her whole life fighting things like him.

Another step closer.

Poor Father Thomas had practically raised her, and here she was, in his house of the Lord, about to commit the greatest sin known to man.

The demon was right in front of her now, the green eyes of his host searching her face greedily.

Even John himself would slap her for even considering this. What if she couldn't find John in Hell? What if they couldn't break out?

He leaned in. The demon was about the same shape as John had been. His host was somewhere around the same age as John had been when she had seen him last.

John.

Sister Hannah closed the distance between their lips.

He felt human enough. Not that Sister Hannah had much more experience kissing men than she had with kissing demons. There was one thing that was still pretty well agreed upon in nun expectations.

She had only kissed one other man.

John.

Sister Hannah felt warmth in her building, yet it wasn't sexual, at least not entirely. It was almost like being pulled into the undertow of a warm wave.

The ground faded from beneath her.

It was a done deal.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thirteen years earlier._

John Winchester blinked the rain out of his eyes and slammed his fist against the old and ornate door of the church again.

"Jim!" He yelled, though he had serious doubts that he could be heard over the storm.

He cast a glance over his shoulder into his car.

Six small eyes peered out at him from the windows. The familiar green eyes of both of his son's sandwiched a big round pair of brown eyes in between.

His eldest son, Dean, caught his eyes and went into his little protector mode, rubbing the younger, Sam, on the back.

Obediently, Sam leaned back against the car seat, long since used to being put to bed in the bench seat of the Impala.

The big brown eyes of the little girl, however, never wavered from him.

John couldn't take it much longer.

John turned back to the church, slamming his fist against the door again.

"Jim, I swear to God!" called John.

"Well, there's no need for language like that," said the priest calmly, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

"Jesus, man," said John, sagging with relief.

The priest rolled his eyes at John's blasphemy, but stepped aside to allow him in. He waved at Dean in the car, the twelve year old waved back, then returned to his task of supervising the two younger children.

John took a seat in the back of the church, the farthest pew from the display at the front. The great man at the front of it all, ushering him forward into salvation.

John wasn't even sure that there was a God. And if there was, John had some serious doubts about his legitimacy. He seemed more like a demon on a power trip than the loving protector that Father Jim tried to sell him on.

The man had seen everything that John had seen and more, but he still insisted that there was a creator who loved them and took care of them.

But this wasn't the time or place for that kind of conversation.

Father Jim sat next to him.

"I assume this has something to do with the little girl in the backseat of your car."

"Yup."

"She have parents?"

"Nope."

"Did you have anything to do with that?"

John rubbed his face in his hands.

Blood. Pooling on the floor, making the carpet soggy beneath his boots. Tiny handprints against the wall, coated in the blood that had somehow spread and touched everything in the house.

The smell of the decomposing bodies in the sweltering trailer.

Big, round demon eyes, peering up at him.

Father Jim didn't say anything, but sat so that he was facing forward with John, both staring blankly at the statute at the head of the alter that promised salvation at the end of it all.

John knew that it gave Jim strength.

Jim saw the statue, the icons, and he saw a reason to keep fighting.

John saw a hollow lie.

"You'll leave her here." Jim said simply.

"That was the plan."

"Does she have a name?"

"She hasn't said a word since I put her in the car."

"When was that?"

"New Mexico."

Jim nodded again. Sometimes, John didn't think that anything would surprise the religious hunter.

"We'll keep her close. " assured Jim.

"Keep her safe."

* * *

"Hook. Jab. Hook. Jab. Duck. Mind your feet. Elbows. Guard your side. Your side. YOUR SIDE."

Father Jim's chanted instruction came a second too late as Caleb landed a sharp blow to Hannah's left side.

"Fucking pig's dick of an asshole," snarled the thirteen year old as she doubled over.

"Language." reminded Father Jim in a tiered voice.

Caleb smirked at her from across the makeshift ring that the priest had thrown together in the church basement. The hunter, less than five years older than the girl herself, stood a solid four inches taller though his spotted acne and lanky frame revealed his youth.

They were a fair sparring match, Father Jim thought. Caleb, tall and ungainly, was still adjusting to his exaggerated limbs that were the result of a recent growth spurt. Hannah, though shorter and younger, had a fiery temper that, when tapped into, made a fearsome opponent.

Caleb was still smirking. The boy was smart, driven, and a good fighter when he wasn't cocky. The girl, however, was best when everyone else thought the chips were down. The second someone counted her out of the race was the second that she leapt up, with more drive than Father Jim had ever thought possible, and mowed down anything that stood in her way.

Caleb was pushing Hannah's buttons. Her nostrils were flaring as he gloated.

"Again?" asked Hannah, recovering and standing straight though her hand was still massaging her side.

"Maybe you should lie down or something," teased Caleb in a whisper, thinking that Father Jim couldn't hear them, "Don't want to start your period, or something."

Father Jim had entertained thoughts of calling it quits before Hannah did tap into her defiant temper and seriously hurt the boy. But, hearing him goad her changed his mind.

Hannah was self-conscious about her blooming womanhood. Try as she might to hide it from them, her voice was finding a more sonous pitch. The baby fat of her youth was melting off her face and waistline as the whispers of hips and breasts began to make their presence known.

She had no female example to guide her. It had been her, Caleb and himself since John had left her five years prior. Her family consisted of a man who had taken a vow of celibacy and a teenage boy who was going through the same changes in his own way. Puberty was not easy for the girl, she was on her own on that front.

"Again," agreed Father Jim, pretending to not hear Caleb's comment. Hannah would get him back for it, Father Jim thought with a sort of satisfaction.

The priest quickly crossed himself and asked forgiveness for his pettiness. If either teen saw, they made no mention as they squared each other up. Just as Caleb was aiming his first strike, Father Jim heard heavy boots above him, in the main room of the church.

The church was in the middle of nowhere. They were lucky if twenty people showed up on Sunday, let alone someone coming in for spiritual guidance on a Thursday afternoon.

Father Jim cast out his hunter skills as he listened to the footsteps. There was only one hunter that Father Jim could think of who would be in that church, sitting as far away from the statue of the savior as was humanly possible.

"Stay here, don't move." Ordered Father Jim as he left the room, yet the thud and muffled curse behind his back told him that Hannah had gotten her revenge.

* * *

John Winchester, stiff and out of place in the wooden pew was looking at the stained glass depiction of the woman at the well, rubbing his scruffy chin absently as he did.

Father Jim cleared his throat.

John jumped as if Father Jim had caught him committing a shameful crime. He cast a smile at the priest.

"Where are the boys?" he asked John. He hadn't seen John since Hannah had entered his life that rainy night five years ago. Besides a few general questions over the phone, usually tacked onto questions about exorcisms and demonic possessions, John hadn't shown much more than a passing interest in the girl.

John had his hands full, Father Jim understood that. He had two sons and an all-consuming obsession with revenge on his plate.

"Dean is with Bobby. They're tracking a Wendigo. I thought it would be good for him to practice hunting a bit without his old man breathing down his back. And Sam… Well, he's been a little stubborn lately. I thought it was a phase, at first. I don't know how long something can be called a phase before it is just a personality trait. He's holed up a couple of towns over while I do this hunt."

"Ah, a hunt." Said the priest. "So that is why you came to see me."

"Well, it sure wasn't your legs, padre."

"I thought it might have something to do with the girl."

John scratched the back of his neck.

"A little." He admitted, "I've got two sons, I don't need a daughter. But, I just want to be sure that she's… ok. Last time we talked you said she was a pretty good fighter. "

"Ah, yes, that was when she broke Caleb's nose."

"Poor Caleb."

"He made fun of her for having a little bit of a crush on a boy in his grade. The way the principal told me it, he was talking about it very loudly amongst his friends when she jumped up on his back and slammed his face into a locker."

"She has a bit of a temper." John guessed, raising his eyebrows.

"Yes, and a bit of a reputation as a 'psycho bitch' among her classmates as of late. I'll admit, our living situation does little to remedy her label of 'uncoolness' at school."

"That doesn't matter much, in the grand scheme of things. " John said after he recovered from the shocked choke he emitted as he heard the prim Father mouth the word 'bitch.'

"It matters very much to a young woman," the priest said gently.

John nodded solemnly.

"So, she's normal, then?"

"She spends most of her time reading. She's thirteen years old and she has a blackbelt in Krav Maga, Karate and Judo. She has no friends that I am aware of and a truly impressive memory for Latin exorcisms. No, she is not normal for any child her age, but, she is clever and kind. I would define her as exceptional."

John smiled at that.

"So, since you aren't here for my legs, what do you need?"

"My shotgun got confiscated in Portland. I've got other guns, sure, but nothing slows an angry spirit down quite like a shotgun pellet full of rock salt."

"You need a new one."

"I would appreciate it."

"Come with me." Father Jim said, standing, "And mind you look sharp. We don't get a lot of visitors, so you can bet that Caleb and Hannah will be watching us once we get to the basement."

"Hannah? The girl's name is Hannah?"

"Yes. I've never told you her name before?"

"No." John was silent as they made their way down the hall. "It's pretty."


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley broke from the kiss.

Hannah stumbled forwards a bit as he pulled back, not because she was enjoying herself but because she suddenly felt dizzy and nauseous and sick. She felt as if she had just gotten off of a tilt-a-whirl just to step onto a fishing boat in a hurricane.

"And now, love, as part of our agreement," Crowley said, stepping forward and clutching her by the back of the neck, forcing her face upwards to his, "You have to die."

Hannah had very little time to consider his words as the knife she never saw in his hand slid into her stomach. She let out a gurgling moan, the shock of the situation making everything around her a little fuzzy and blurry.

As the demon dropped her to the floor, she finally registered that her short life was ending. It was something of a comfort, she thought, to know that the worst was already going to come to pass. Somehow, knowing where she was going, even if it was Hell, seemed more comforting than not knowing at all. At least she knew that she would see John.

John.

How long did it take to die, seriously? Hannah was getting to the point where she just wanted it to be over, finally. The most inane details of her surroundings suddenly seemed poignant and significant.

From the floor, she saw a cat toy under her bed. Small and blue with a bell on the inside, but all Hannah could see was the impossibly delicate curve, the illumination of light cast by the reflection in the minute bell.

Hannah rolled to her side, facing the door, away from her bed. In, quite possibly, a stoke of genius, she moved as much as she could in her dying state and swept her hand across the salt line of the door. It would do not good to either of them if they were still trapped in the room, a demon and a spirit, helpless against the grains of sodium chloride.

The demon was watching her, clearly growing as impatient as she was. He knelt down near her head. In a gesture that, had it been any other creature on Earth or in Hell, Hannah would have considered tender, he moved the hair from her face. He tucked a strand behind her ear and then slit her throat.

With that, Hannah composed her last thought as a living human.

'Finally.'

* * *

When Hannah regained some sense, she felt impossibly light. As if she would float off into nothing if she didn't focus on her surroundings. And, focusing on her surroundings was taking an unusually high level of energy.

She wanted to float upwards, where she was naturally being pulled anyways. She couldn't see or hear anything, but she was positive that there was something very fun happening right above her, just out of her reach.

"Focus," said an irritable Crowley, suddenly appearing beside her.

Hannah nodded and tried to turn her attention fully to him, but her eyes kept drifting upwards. Crowley grabbed her by the elbow and Hannah suddenly could only sense the present. Like tuning from static into a radio station, suddenly every detail was gritty and clear.

The wrinkles at the corner of Crowley's eyes. The pores of her own skin. Crowley gave an exasperated sigh.

"Get your shit together," he snapped, shaking her a bit, "This is why I don't do this sort of stuff. Guiding new souls is like babysitting someone on acid. You made a deal, you need to come with me. No use looking up. That's one party we're not invited to."

"Is that Heaven?"

"Oh, good, you can talk. That's something, I suppose. Yes, that's Heaven. You're not going up there and you never will. The sooner you get that through your little brain, the better. We have to _move_."

"Why?"

"Because, you sold your soul to me," he said in a tone that sounded like an exhausted parent reiterating a lesson, "That is one of the handful of unforgivable sins. Even after you break out of Hell," Crowley smirked as the words left his mouth, as if it was a very funny joke, "You won't be able to go up there. Ever. So, stop fixating on it or you'll drive yourself mad. And then, most importantly, you won't be able to hold up your end of the deal. Let's _go._"

The hand gripping her elbow started to pull her away from the sense of upwardness. Crowley cast a look back at her and then, suddenly, they were walking through woods.

Crowley took a second to gage his surroundings, his hand still firmly on her elbow. Seeming to recognize where they were, he nodded and pulled her forwards. Hannah jogged to keep up. She no longer felt the presence of Heaven and Crowley's tense pose and hurried movements centered her attention on him and his vice grip.

"I meant," Hannah said in a whisper, since the anxious expression in Crowley's persona seemed to demand it, "Why do we have to move? What are we running from?"

"Oh, a lot of things," said Crowley. He paused for a moment and considered a tree. He cast a look over Hannah's shoulder and pulled her through it. Suddenly the pair were no longer in the woods, but in a very old city. Gauging by the handwritten signs and the crowd of people passing by, Hannah would guess it was an Asian city in the seventeenth century.

The people in the city walked around the two who appeared out of thin air without looking at them. Crowley glanced around again and started walking down the street.

"First and foremost," said Crowley, continuing as if he hadn't been interrupted by the sudden change in scenery. "We're running from Reapers. Your death was untimely, so they're going to send someone to investigate it. They would take your soul and send it to Hell, but they might send it someplace where I couldn't get to you."

"What do you mean, couldn't get to me?"

"Well, lets just say that only a fraction of Hell is under anyone's control. Even Lucifer, the King of Hell, though, at the moment he is… indisposed. In his absence, Lilith is running the show, on his orders. But, there are a lot of demons that don't respect her authority. If you get dropped on the frontier of Hell, I might not be able to get through to you, the other demons and souls wouldn't let me."

Crowley turned suddenly and entered a building. As Hannah crossed the threshold of the door, they were suddenly walking along a deserted paved road. The painted lines and street signs told Hannah that they were closer to her own time period. Crowley continued walking and talking as if nothing had changed. He turned away from the road, leading Hannah into the desert that surrounded it.

"Secondly, we're hiding from other spirits. You still have a pure soul. By pure, I mean it's intact. There are virtually no souls like yours, open and vulnerable, wandering around on the Earth, in that dimension. You're like the single candle and all the ghosts, demons and everything in between are the moths."

"So, where are we?"

"We're taking a scenic route. I've been in and out of Hell enough times to know where I'm going. When you get to be a demon long enough, you can sort of carve out your own little slice of hedonistic paradise. I'm taking you to mine personally. We're taking a scenic route because I don't want anyone to know where I'm taking you."

"Why?"

Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Because," he said, betraying his annoyance at her constant questions, "You're going to help me to overthrow Lilith, take out Lucifer and kill out all the other demons who would love nothing more than to beat me to the throne of Hell. It won't do me any good if everyone can see what I'm doing, will it? Ah. Here we are."

Crowley gave Hannah a final pull, then suddenly stopped short, causing Hannah to stumble into his back. Crowley gave her a raised eyebrow as he waited for Hannah to collect herself.

Hannah looked around her. No longer in a desert, she was standing in a dreary office building. A series of cubicles were collected in the center while the walls hosted a series of posters. As Hannah gave them a second look, she saw that they were all Nazi propaganda posters from WWII.

"Welcome to Hell." Said Crowley, surveying the room proudly.


	4. Chapter 4

John was surveying the shotgun in his hands, feeling the cold metal that would stand as the only thing between him and death. He ran a thumb along where the number had been sandpapered off.

Father Jim returned with a lanky teenager in tow. John nodded in greeting. The kid gave him a small salute.

John cast a smile at Father Jim. The lanky kid, speckled with acne and looking like a strong gust of wind could knock him over, was standing at attention like a well-seasoned soldier. The intimidation of the kid's rigid stance and serious expression was softened a little by the fact that he wore a jacket several sizes too big for him. The sleeves were rolled up a few inches. He looked like a kid, playing pretend.

It broke John's heart a little to know that he wasn't.

"John," said Father Jim formally, "This is Caleb. Caleb, meet John."

"Yes, I've heard a lot about you," said John, holding out his hand and causing the kid's face to light up.

"Mr. Winchester, it's an honor to meet you." Said Caleb, gratefully accepting it, "Your reputation precedes you."

John believed it. The kid looked like he was meeting a celebrity for the first time.

"Well," said Father Jim, smiling between the two, "Caleb actually knows our shotgun collection a little better than I do. I'll go check on Hannah. She's doing homework, right?"

He asked the question at Caleb. Caleb shrugged, more interested in the guns before John than Hannah. Father Jim excused himself and went upstairs.

"You don't want that one." Caleb said. Despite looking star struck at first meeting John personally, the kid was all business when he talked about guns.

"I was very fond of my last shotgun. A side-by-side double barrel. This one is a little longer, but it will do."

"No." Caleb said. He reached under the table where several shotguns were laid out. "You want this girl. She's an over under pump action, but her barrel is nice and short. Easier to handle in a hunt. That one, " Caleb gestured to the one in John's hand, " tends to jam. I clean her every chance I get, but still…"

Caleb held out the gun to John.

"Thanks," said John, holding the new weapon in his hands. As he glanced back up at Caleb, he noticed a shadow of a black eye forming. "That's quite a shiner you got there. Hunt?"

"Nah, Hannah." Said the kid. John was a little impressed that he said it without an ounce of shame in his voice. Not many boys his age could admit that a younger girl could get the drop on them. "She's got a good left hook. She's fast. Got a lot of endurance. She can't shoot for shit though."

As bit of pride crept into his voice at the statement, John was overwhelmingly reminded of Sam and Dean. Both had a grudging respect for the other, but each was damn proud when they were better.

"What are you hunting?" asked Caleb.

"The spirit of a very underappreciated school counselor." John said, without much interest. He was still getting familiar with the feel of the new gun in his hand. He knew in a matter of weeks it would feel natural, an extension of his arm and of his self. Now, however, the gun was stiff and foreign.

"Bad haunting?"

"I've seen worse."

"I'm a real good shot."

"I would assume as much. I like this one. What can I give you for it?"

"Take me on the hunt with you?"

John knitted his brows as he looked up from the gun. The kid squared his shoulders under John's gaze, trying to look bigger and tougher than he really was.

John looked him from his too big combat boots to his oversized military coat. His head was shaved close, leaving only a trail of baby fine peach fuzz on the top of his head.

"If Father Jim says it's alright."

The kid let a relieved smile escape his lips before snapping his mouth shut and resuming his stern gaze.

* * *

Father Jim had agreed to let Caleb go. Caleb was trying his hardest to remain composed for John's sake as John agreed to stay for dinner, leaving with Caleb for the hunt in the early afternoon the next day.

Hannah, however, was taking the news very poorly indeed.

She was slamming plates and dishes around the kitchen leaving little doubt in Father Jim's mind that she was fuming.

It was especially suspicious since Hannah rarely cooked more than a Hot Pocket. Even then, she would bully, bribe and pout to get either him or Caleb to make it for her.

John was politely trying to pretend that he didn't hear her as he sat at the table pouring over his notes with Caleb.

After a particularly loud crash of a breaking plate, Father Jim stood abruptly and marched into the kitchen, though not before shooting Caleb a look warning him to stop his gloating. The young hunter was practically beaming with ego at John's attention.

"That is quite enough," the priest said softly as he entered the kitchen. It was enough to get Hannah to freeze where she was holding the pan. She looked a little guilty, as she usually did after a huge blowout. She didn't seem to have problems taking out her temper on Caleb, but for Father Jim, at least, she tried to show a modicum of respect and restraint.

It seemed to be testing her will power to her very limits at this particular moment.

The Father stepped forward, taking the pan from her hand.

"May I guess what is wrong?"

"Caleb." She snarled, like a feral dog, "Fucking Caleb. I'm the better hunter. I read the books that he skims, I spend the extra hours in the gym while he watches T.V. It should be me that goes and you know it."

The words flowed out of her mouth like poison, venom and hate at the injustice of the situation punctuated every syllable. Father Jim decided to not chastise her foul language at that particular moment.

"You think Caleb is a bad hunter?"

"No." she said after a beat, "I am just better."

"Can you think of any reasons that John might not want you to go?"

"Because I'm a girl?"

"Exactly. Not because you are female. Because you are thirteen years old. Caleb is eighteen. "

Hannah bit the inside of her cheek as Father Jim said it. After several years of watching the girl, he knew that she couldn't find a way to dispute him.

"It isn't fair." She concluded petulantly.

"No, I'm afraid not." Said Father Jim. "But your time will come. I think that perhaps you should take your dinner upstairs alone. This is a big night for Caleb and I won't have you ruining it for him."


	5. Chapter 5

Hannah picked at the faux fabric lining of her cubicle, yet again. It felt solid and real beneath her touch, but she knew that it was only a fragment of Crowley's desires.

In the middle of Hell, the sheer definition of chaos, the demon had instilled order.

Hannah jumped as the phone in her cubicle rang.

Glancing around, she determined that she was the intended recipient and answered it with a shaking hand.

"Hello?" she asked, hesitantly.

"Hello." Said a cool woman's voice, "Mr. Crowley would like to meet you in his office, as soon as is convenient."

"Oh…um…sure, ok."

"Very good, is now a good time?"

Hannah looked around her desolate workspace.

"Yeah…"

"Very good. I will tell Mr. Crowley that you will be in his office momentarily. Thank you." The cool voice concluded pleasantly.

"Wait, where is…Mr…Crowley's office?" Hannah started, but only a dial tone answered her question. Hannah hesitated before delicately placing the phone back on the cradle. She swerved her chair to face the opening of her cubicle, then stood.

She entered the bustling crowd of suit-clad workers, deliberately walking to and from their destinations. Hannah felt especially conspicuous as she was still wearing the clothes that she died in; jeans and a tank top, still bloodstained.

However, none of the other workers even stopped or looked her way. In fact, none of them looked at each other. They all walked deliberately forward, eyes on whatever their destination was.

Hannah walked over to a receptionist's desk. The woman was on the phone with someone. As she patiently waited for her to end her call, Hannah recognized the cool voice that had spoken to her earlier.

"Very good." Said the woman, "I will tell Mr. Crowley that you will be in his office momentarily."

Hannah paused. How many people were going to be in Crowley's office?

Instead of ending the call, the woman sat silently, staring blankly ahead, the phone still held to her ear. Then, as if a tape flipping over, she began again.

"Hello." She said, her voice identical to the call that Hannah had received minutes ago, "Mr. Crowley would like to meet you in his office as soon as is convenient."

Hannah backed away slowly.

She started walking along the office, for once, she started looking into the faces of those who passed her.

Waxy, like a mannequin, all the face were exactly identical. The only differences between the men, women, short, fat, old young were their clothes. Their faces were all vacant clones of each other.

As Hannah rounded a corner, perhaps a little too quickly to pass for nonchalant, she came face to face with a huge, ornate corner office.

As she peered in the window, she saw the first origional face that she had seen all day. She hurried into his office, all but slamming the door behind her. Never, in her entire life, had she thought that she would take comfort in recognizing a demon.

Crowley looked up from his computer as his desk.

"What? You don't knock?" he asked.

"What the Hell is this place?"

"Why, Hell, of course." He said. He gestured to the seat in front of his desk as he rose. "Can I get you a drink?"

"No, I'm good, thanks." Hannah said, distractedly. Now that he mentioned it, she was thirsty. She was thirstier than she had ever been in her entire life. Hungrier, too. But, she had more pressing matters to contend with. Crowley shrugged and poured himself a scotch neat. "Who are all those people out there?"

"Ah, yes, my little worker bees." Said Crowley, affectionately "Quite serious, aren't they?"

"Why are they all so creepy?"

"By 'creepy' I'll assume you mean 'similar.' Well, I'm afraid that you standing in something of a Mom and Pop shop corner of Hell."

"What?"

"I don't have that much power, OK?" he yelled. It was sudden and terrifying, his voice echoing around the office. "Look, I'm trying to build up a resistance in my own little corner of Hell. The only souls here are the ones who are loyal to me."

"How many souls is that?"

"Besides me and counting you? One."

"Me? Just me?"

"For now, yes." He said, "Soon, though, we can have more. Enough to get me where I belong."

"I thought you were already King of the Crossroads."

"I meant King of Hell."

Hannah nodded and licked her lips, wondering if she had just made a massive mistake in lining herself up with the demon. Honestly, she didn't care if he took over. She didn't really care if he died. She only wanted, needed, to find John. The man whose lips flavored her dreams for years after the kiss that changed her life. The only man that she ever had, that she ever could, love.

She wondered if Crowley had enough juice to get her what she needed.

"About John Winchester," said Crowley, taking a seat behind his desk. He gave a perceptive grin as he saw that the name alone could snap Hannah to attention. "The tricky part isn't finding him. It's getting to him."

"You know where he is?" asked Hannah, in a rush. She stood, as if she intended to go sprinting off to him at that very moment.

"Sit down, love." Said Crowley, in an amused tone. The tone turned sharp when Hannah didn't obey, "I said _sit_." He snarled, flattening his palm in midair. Hannah felt her legs break, forcing her to fall back into the chair.

She screamed as tears of pain sprang to her eyes. With a flick of his wrist, Hannah heard her bones snap back into place, though the phantom burn of agony stayed. He had the juice alright, Hannah thought, with a fearful sort of awe.

"You are _not_ to rush off and do anything stupid." he said, returning to his friendly, businesslike tone, "Of course I know where John Winchester is. Every demon knows. There is a line a mile long of demons, patiently waiting their turn, to slice knives and hooks into his flesh. Being ripped from our host and sent back to Hell is quite painful. John has a long list of demons who are absolutely dying to return the favor."

Hannah blanched as Crowley mentioned torture.

She hated thinking about blood and scars and pain along the flesh that she had held under her hands. She couldn't fathom the mouth she had devoured being shaped into a yell of pain. She wanted to stand and run to him, slicing any demons that dared to mar his skin. But, her legs still shook with the shock of pain from Crowley's powers. She stayed still.

"So, what do we do?" asked Hannah, looking at Crowley, her only fellow conspirator.

"I am going to make John Winchester a little deal to get him off the rack. Once he is, the other demons can't hurt him without having to beat him in a fight. I figure that, combined, you and John can kick some considerable ass. Perhaps win me some allies or at least instill some fear with my name."

"What about getting us out?" asked Hannah, "What about your end of the deal? Getting John and I out of Hell?"

"All in good time, my dear, all in good time." He said dismissively. Hannah bit her lip but didn't respond. She trusted the demon about as far as she could throw him, and considering that he could break her legs with the snap of his fingers, she doubted even getting close enough to try would end up with her brains smeared against the wall.

As it was, her entire energy was pulsing with the promise of seeing John again.

"I must say, I'm impressed," said Crowley, changing the subject. "When I first got to Hell, I remember being so _thirsty_. Nothing could quench it. You seem fine."

Hannah was suddenly aware of the sandpaper in her throat. She was thirsty. And hungry. And a couple of other human needs that she didn't care to try and satisfy until John was within reach.

"You're sure I can't interest you in a drink?"

Hannah unconsciously licked her lips again, her thirst growing exponentially. She was suspicious of anything the demon said or gave to her. But, she was so, so thirsty.

"Um, Ok." She said.

Crowley grinned and handed her a scotch neat, identical to the one in his own hand. Hannah had never drank alcohol before.

Then again, Hannah had never thought she'd be sitting in Hell, conspiring with a demon. She never thought that John would be so stupid as to throw himself into Hell's pit.

So she put the glass to her lips and drank. And drank and drank and drank. Gulping it down like it was the first time that her lips had met fluid. The burn of the alcohol was a gentle warmth. A benefit, perhaps, of being dead.

Crowley grinned again, wider, knowingly.

"In case I haven't said it already," he said, holding his still mostly full glass up, "Welcome to the club."


	6. Chapter 6

**Ok, sorry about being so schizo about the rating on this one. Basically, I'm terrified of getting in trouble. I got caught in that enforcement raid in July, so...**

**There is definitely not going to be super graphic sex scenes in this story. Sorry, kids. (I so have some shameless John/OFC one shots, if you're interested, check my page.) But there are some hints of sexuality. Plus, I realized that I've said "fuck" like three times in this story, which I don't think you're supposed to do if it's rated 'T'. I'm just such a potty mouth in real life I don't even fucking realize when I'm doing that shit.**

**So, basically rated M for suggestive themes and language. Sorry to disappoint anyone out there looking for some good old fashioned sex scenes.**

* * *

The sound of the gunfire was muffled by her headphones, but still rang in her ears. Her arm ached from holding the gun taut in her hands. A persistent bead of sweat was making its way from her hairline to the back of her neck, but Hannah would be damned if she called it quits.

Once again, her hit was a few inches off the mark.

Hannah let out a soft sigh as she lowered her gun and wiped her forehead. She was standing in the shooting range that Father Jim had fashioned in the back room of the church. It was about a hundred feet of fluorescently lit concrete and not much else.

If she were anyone besides a hunter in training, it would still be an impressive shot, especially for a thirteen-year-old girl. But not only was she a hunter in training, she was Hannah. Anything less than perfection simply would not suffice.

She sighed again and changed her clip. Caleb would be livid when he saw how much ammo she had wasted, but Hannah was hardly afraid of the older boy. Especially when he got to go out and hunt, and kill and fight and she had to sit at home and knit or something stupid and passive like that.

Her frustration did little to help her aim.

While the venomous well of anger that bubbled up and over was useful in hand-to-hand combat, the pounding in her ears worsened her marksmanship significantly. The bullet hit so far off the mark that it wasn't even close, barely grazing the target as it went ricocheting into the concrete wall behind it.

"Fuck." She mumbled to herself as she slid the headphones off her ears.

She jumped as she heard a chuckle from the doorway. It wasn't a cackle, mean and teasing like Caleb would give. Father Jim barely ever laughed and she knew that her curse would be met with a stern look and a warning, not a good-natured chortle.

So Hannah turned to see the only other possible candidate.

John Winchester stepped forward, his new shotgun in his hand.

"Sorry," he said, "I came down here to try out my new gun and got distracted by your sailor's mouth and miserable aim."

"It isn't that bad." Said Hannah, defensively. She pointed to her passable marks on the target, a few inches off, but still close enough to hurt.

Probably not kill, if the target was a werewolf or something that needed a shot straight through the heart, but it would knock something down, do some damage. John nodded and shrugged.

"A few mediocre shots aren't worth much if they aren't at least consistent." He said, "If you can't shoot OK at least most of the time, you can't be useful on a hunt. Sorry to break it to you, but ghosts, werewolves and everything in between are fast and don't always move in relation to our laws of physics and gravity. You need to be able to shoot to kill in a split second. Understood?"

"Of course I understand. I'm already a better hunter than Caleb." She said petulantly. John looked at her like she was a child, which aggravated her even more.

"I could hunt that ghost of yours. I could do it better than him."

"Your mouth is writing checks that your aim can't cash, little girl."

Her ears pounded again. Hannah felt bile in the back of her throat as he underestimated her, just like everyone else.

_Little girl._

She slipped the headphones back over her ears and shot four shots, right after the other into the target. They were even farther off than before.

"You don't like it when I underestimate you, do you?" he asked softly. Hannah looked up at him malevolently. "Good. Use it. Prove me wrong. You've got fire, kid. Anger and chaos don't have to go hand in hand. Let it clear your mind, kid. Let it free you, not fuel you."

Hannah took a deep breath and aimed her gun back at the target.

"Let it go, let it all go. Everything but the need to kill. Everything but the need to shoot. Nothing else matters now."

Hannah pulled the trigger once, and was amazed at how smooth it felt. If she didn't know better, she'd say that the bullet moved slower than before, like flying through butter rather than air. Despite the ring of the gun's recoil, Hannah heard only silence, like submerging her ears underwater. She was weightless and focused.

And lethal.

The shot was still a few inches off the mark, but it was the closest she had ever gotten.

"Better." Said John with a smile. "Definitely better."

He pumped his new shotgun and held it aloft at Hannah's target. The shotgun was louder than Hannah's .45, but John didn't even flinch from the noise echoing around the room.

The hit went straight through the target.

"Are you angry when you shoot?" asked Hannah, impressed with his flawless shot.

"I think about the demon that killed my wife." He said, aiming again. John shot again, once more hitting the target perfectly, "I think about what the demon did to my boy." Another sound hit. "I think about my boys growing up on the road with me instead of at home with their mother, where they belonged." Two more shots reverberated through the room. "I'm always angry, Hannah." He said. "But that's what separates hunters from everyone else."

Hannah nodded as she saw the anger in him, sparkling right below the surface. She burned hot. Temper and rage and violence, forcing everyone to yield to her demands. He was a low burning flame, fast and quiet. At the end of the day, his fire would burn longer and farther than her flash of energy.

But he felt it. She saw it in him.

"I'm sorry I can't take you tomorrow, kid." He said, patting her on the shoulder. "I really am."

His big hand rested heavily on her shoulder, and Hannah felt the warmth of it inexplicably go from her shoulder to the tips of her toes, taking a and nice and languid detour in her stomach. She mirrored his gesture, placing her own, smaller hand on his arm. It was a bit like touching a horse's leg; heat and muscle and potential.

"I'm sorry too," she said, her voice taking on a breathy quality that she had never heard before. Her fingers moved an inch at most and completely without her conscious thought. They were asking for something she didn't quite understand yet.

She just knew that he smelt like soap and leather and he felt like burning hot power, with a temper just like hers burning like a furnace beneath his gaze.

John, however, knew exactly what her fingers were asking. He dropped his hand quickly and stepped out of her reach so that her hand hung in midair for a moment before falling, disappointed, to her side. John cleared his throat and turned away from her.

"You've got school in the morning, right?" He asked. His voice was a pitch or two higher than usual.

He didn't wait for Hannah to respond as he started reloading his shotgun, ignoring her presence.

Ignoring her body's request for something he couldn't give her.


	7. Chapter 7

"Stay close to me." Crowley reminded Hannah as they got ready to leave his little office of Hell.

"Alright." Said Hannah, nervously, though she was practically shaking to see John again.

"We're about to go out there into… madness. Every little horror story about Hell that you've ever heard is about to become real. Chains. Blood. Screams. A BDSM fantasy come to life and just a little too obvious for my taste." Crowley rolled his eyes, "So terribly predictable. It's almost a little dull."

"I can't imagine you in that kind of place." Remarked Hannah. She had intended it as an offhand sort of statement, but Crowley rounded on her as the words left her lips.

"You think that I got where I am without being able to flourish in that kind of Hell?" he asked, venomously, "Don't you ever underestimate me again."

"Right… sorry." Mumbled Hannah.

"Don't look anyone in the eye. Don't stare, but don't look away either. They can smell fear and they get off on it. Just pretend that you've seen this shit a thousand times before."

"Ok."

"Are you ready?" asked Crowley softly, "Are you ready to face the music and save John Winchester from the rack?"

Any fear that Hannah had felt initially paled in comparison to saving the man she loved. Hell stood no match against Hannah with a game plan.

The first thing Hannah felt as she stepped outside of the tiny office was silence. She was walking from a busy office, punctuated with phone rings and the clicking of keyboard keys into a great, silent cave. A narrow ledge surrounded a great pit, thinly spiraling downward toward the light.

Crowley pointed downwards and Hannah had a new understanding of the term "pit." It was literally a hole of fire.

It looked almost like a spider web of chains with small clumps and figures, insects caught in the web. Lit from behind by the flames, their faces and figures were cast in shadow and Hannah could only see the general outlines of figures spread across. As she looked down after a moment, she recognized that there were human bodies strung between them, like beads on bloodstained chains. Crowley raised his eyebrows and Hannah knew that John was down there.

Anger bubbled up under her skin at the thought of anyone hurting him. Anyone who made that strong bear of a man helpless and vulnerable deserved to die, Hannah decided. And she very much wanted to be a part of it.

She looked up to see Crowley watching her, amused. With a nod of his head, they began to walk along the ledge to the base of the pit.

Hannah wasn't sure how long they had been going, since the fire of Hell burned bright constantly. She was sure, though, that they had been walking for hours. Demons would pass them, giving Crowley a reverent nod and Hannah a curious glance, though no one said a thing.

There was no small talk in Hell.

After another eternity of walking around the ledge of the cavern, Crowley cast a quick glance over his shoulder, the only warning that Hannah was going to get, telling her that they had arrived.

With a flick of his wrist, the chain in front of him started to move, pulling the corpse in the center of it towards the ledge with them. Two demons appeared out of nowhere and grabbed the body from the chains.

Scarred, crusted over with dry blood and folded over into himself as though the mere action of holding his head up straight caused him pain, John Winchester looked broken and half dead.

Without saying a word, Crowley turned on his heel, and walked into a doorway carved into the side of the cave. Another demon's Hell, Hannah guessed.

Once the five entered, the two demon cronies unceremoniously threw John's body onto the table and went about tying his wrists and ankles, laying him open and exposed on the slab stained with rusty red brown streaks that Hannah recognized as, yet more, blood.

Hannah was about to open her mouth to protest his treatment when Crowley pinched her arm. He widened his eyes fractionally, communicating a statement without words, "_Do. Not. Blow. It."_

Crowley dismissed the demon cronies with a look. When the demons left the room, Crowley's shoulders relaxed and he turned back to Hannah.

"Stay here with him," he said, "I need to have a talk with the demon who has lease on his soul."

"Azazel?" she asked.

"Not quite. See, Demons like Azazel like killing up there." Said Crowley, raising his eyes to the ceiling, "He gets bored of souls all laid out like this. Too easy. He likes a little more chase. This demon is called Alistair, and the only thing he likes more than blood and screams is watching one of his little victims turn. Stay here with him, but _do not _try to sneak him out without me. You'll get all three of us killed. Again." He concluded coldly.

He turned walked to the back of the stone room where there must have been a door that Hannah couldn't see though the flickering shadows cast by the lone torch.

The second she was sure he was gone, she rushed towards her bloodied lover.

"John." She whispered, tracing his scarred face with her fingertips. His eyes were all but swollen shut and his cheekbone was broken, casting a great concave in his once strong features.

"John," she murmured again, reverently. Her fingers left his face and began to skim down his arms, riding over the mountains and ravines of crusted, scabbed and bruised flesh.

John mumbled something and shifted his weight. He lifted his neck off of the table and looked at Hannah, clearly trying to focus his gaze. He squinted at her for a moment.

"Hannah?" he asked, though his voice was not as worshipping as Hannah's had been. "What are you doing here?"

"It's not a dream," Hannah said softly, resuming her position by his head, "I'm really here."

"I know it isn't a dream, I don't dream down here. No one does. What are you doing here?"

After John looked at her for another long minute, his face softened.

"Your soul… it's bright."

"Thank you."

"I didn't mean it like that. It was an observation, not a complement. No, I mean, you don't belong here."

"I made a deal. I made a deal to—"

"You did _what?_"

"I did it for you." Said Hannah, "I came to get you out."

"_Why?" _

"I love you, John," Hannah whispered, "I love you. I couldn't survive without you."

John was tied to the table, so he couldn't stand or push Hannah away. All he could do was jerk his chin out from her fingers and look away from her.

"We've talked about this," he said lowly, annoyed and disgusted, "You don't… You should never have done this you stupid, stupid child."

Hannah dropped her fingers from his chin and stepped back, her eyes watering. She crossed her arms over her chest but set her jaw in determination.

"It is already done." She said, making John wince. It looked like she hurt him more with that statement than if she had taken a hammer from the weapon clad wall and buried in his ribs.

"I do love to inturrupt," said Crowley walking in suddenly "but, I've done what I do best. "

"You made a deal." Said John, shortly.

"Ah, if it isn't the Winchester patriarch. It is absolutely unpleasant to make your acquaintance, but a deal is a deal."

"This your demon?" John asked Hannah, coldly.

"How do we get him off the rack?" Hannah asked Crowley, choosing to ignore John completely.

"He has to torture a soul." Said Crowley with a shrug, "Quite easy. They sent a minion to fetch one now. A few slices to the chest, etcetera etcetera."

"No." said John.

"Look, mate, if you want to quit being a human canvas for a demon's sadistic jollies, I suggest you grow a pair and bloody well _do _it."

"No."

"Then you're going to get strung back up like popcorn on a Christmas tree thread."

"Let them string me up." Growled John. "Let them do it, I've done a lot of terrible things on earth." John's eyes flitted to Hannah, "I'm not doing them down here too."

Crowley was about to let loose a retort when a sobbing woman was dragged into the room.

"Fresh soul?" asked the demon, holding her by the chain shackle around her neck.

"Yes, that was for us," said Crowley lightly, "I thank you."

The woman was in her fourties, thin and weak looking. Her cheeks were hollowed and Hannah recognized the signs of a Meth addict, with rotted teeth and pricks of scabs and torn skin.

"You gotta help me." She pleaded, looking from Hannah to Crowley. As her eyes fell on John, bloodied and torn as he was, she started a fresh waves of blubbering nonsense, the only distinguishable syllables being, "No, please, not, I'm sorry."

Crowley walked over to John and easily unsnapped his wrist restraints, then his ankle restraints. John sat up, but looked no less adamant.

"No." he said simply.

"She's going to be tortured anyways," said Crowley as he thoughtfully inspecting the wall of torture instruments behind Hannah. He decided on a mace with rust growing on the spikes. "If you do, you get to walk free. Sureley, after a lifetime of of saving people, cutting into a damned and doomed soul can't be so bad. You've earned a free pass."

"I said 'no.'" said John.

"Someone has to do it."

"Not me." said John again.

Hannah stepped forward, pulling the mace from Crowley's hand.

"Please, don't." begged the emaciated soul of the meth addict, her eyes swimming with tears as she searched Hannah's face for mercy, "I was just so cold."

The weapon whistled as it sliced the air, making a sick wet suctioning sound as the spikes pierced and ripped the skin meth addict's face.

The woman fell to the ground, her face crushed in. Hannah dropped the mace and looked over her shoulder to the demon and the man.

Crowley grinned at her and John watched Crowley's face, his eyes narrowed.

"Let's get out of here." Said Hannah. She stepped over the body as she made her way to the door.


	8. Chapter 8

The Impala rumbled down the dirt road away from Father Jim's church. John had just dropped Caleb off after another hunt. In only three years, the kid had a gained a truly impressive reputation as a gun runner and hunter with a special knack for tracking werewolves. But John hunted alone and always had. Caleb was a good kid and even pretty fun to be around but John didn't need another kid to be responsible for.

As he hit a pothole, John had thought he heard a thump from the trunk. He turned down his music and listened again. Experimentally, he quickly shifted the wheels. He heard the heavy noise rolling, unsecured again.

Despite what Bobby Singer and many other hunters might say, John wasn't careless. He was rash, he was reckless, he was ruthless but he was never careless about his boys, his car or his weapons. No way in Hell did John Winchester forget to secure whatever was that heavy in the trunk.

He drove straight for a few more minutes before finding a sufficiently thick patch of trees by the side of the road where he could confront whatever demon or beast had decided to hitch a ride with him. After glancing back to the road to be sure he was well hidden, John pulled his .45 from the waistband of his pants and cocked it. In a swift motion, he opened the trunk and pointed the gun right into the depths.

"Jesus, fucking, Christ, almighty, Hannah." Sighed John, a little relieved as he clicked the safety back on his gun. "I was about to shoot you."

"You kiss Father Jim with that mouth?" she asked. At sixteen, the girl was still slender and coltish and she sat up straight, smoothing her hair. Hannah's little snipe brought John from relieved right back around to pissed.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Enjoying the scenery." She said, rolling her eyes. "You've got a hunt lined up, I just know it. You took Caleb that one time. It's my turn."

"One, Caleb was eighteen, you're sixteen. Two, I didn't invite you, nor did you ask, And, three… I don't need a third because 'no.'"

"I'm going."

"Hannah. Out. Now."

"No. John. I'm going."

John grabbed Hannah from under her arms in a coldly efficient motion and lifted her from the car trunk. Her legs kicked impotently in the air for a few minutes before he forced them to accept her weight as he dropped her to the ground.

Hannah gave him a filthy look as she tried to regain what dignity she had left, smoothing the collar and cuffs of her jacket. John knew enough about Hannah to know that she could be downright pushy when she thought she deserved something. Caleb and Father Jim may have yielded to her glare, but John Winchester wasn't about to be manipulated by a teenage girl.

"I'm taking you back to Father Jim's. He can deal with you."

"No," corrected Hannah "We're going on your hunt. I'm old enough."

"You're sixteen. That's not old enough."

"I'm fast enough. I'm smart enough. I'm well versed enough. Give me one good reason."

"I'm going to pull my 'sixteen' card one more time."

"What can I do to prove to you that I'm ready?"

"Turn eighteen."

"Give me something to work with here!"

"No. I'm an adult and you're a kid and I'm saying 'no.' This hunt is too big for a first time anyways. It's a Wendigo. Do you know about Wendigos? They're the stuff that give nightmares nightmares."

"You can't tackle a Wendigo all by yourself."

"Watch me."

"It's true then. You really are a crazy son of a bitch," said Hannah with nothing short of awe. "I'm definitely going with you then."

"Hannah—"

"No, hear me out," said Hannah hurriedly as John rolled his eyes. "I'll stay in the car or the motel, wherever you want me. I'll help you track it and help you arm up to take it down. Call Father Jim or Bobby Singer when you don't come back. I can do _something_."

Hannah must have detected the flicker of doubt behind John's eyes as she rushed onward, with more confidence in her sales pitch than ever before.

"Back seat hunting only, I promise."

John let out a long sigh as he looked her over. Perhaps he had been a little rash as he initially thought of her as coltish. Her arms were etched with lean muscle and she wasn't petite. John was tall, and Hannah was only four or so inches shorter than him. She straightened up her spine so that she looked even taller under his scrutiny. She returned his stare with such a violent passion that a lesser man might have stepped back. But John Winchester was John motherfucking Winchester and he met her, fire for fire.

"Fine." He said after a long moment of considering her with the sinking suspicion that he had just done something he would regret.

* * *

"Oh, John. I am so relieved to hear from you. May I guess that you have Hannah in tow?" Said Father Jim, and John could feel the tension relax from the man's shoulders over the payphone.

"Yup."

"I, ah, assume that she has found a way to latch herself onto your hunt, then."

"Looks like."

"She can be a bit persistent, when she wants to be."

"Yeah, I'm getting that."

"Just… remember that she's sixteen, John. She may act like she knows everything. She may actually _believe _that she knows everything, but, truly, she is a very inexperienced child. Be careful."

"Don't worry, Jim. Backseat hunting only. She won't even look a live Wendigo in the eye."

"I wasn't just talking about the hunt, John."

"Jesus, Jim. What kind of man do you think I am?"

"I trust you John. I have trusted you with my life. Despite what some, including yourself, may believe, you are a good man. Hannah… Hannah has habit of getting tunnel vision when it comes to something she wants… Just, be careful. With the hunt and everything else."

"I won't forget." Said John.

* * *

Once the motel room door clicked behind them, John finally let out the groan of pain that he had been holding in from the car to the room. He could feel the blood gushing down his spine. He shrugged out of his jacket with difficulty, his movements hindered by his desire to move the loose and torn skin around the wound on his shoulder as little as possible.

"There's so much blood." Hannah whispered, her once cocky eyes were round and terrified. If John wasn't in so much pain, he was sure that he would get some sort of satisfaction from the change of expression. As it was, John ignored her obvious comment and started to slide his arm from the sleeve of his shirt as he was walking towards the bathroom to see the damage.

"Fuck fuck FUCK. That's going to need stitches. " he said as he saw the real damage.

"I'm so sorry." Hannah murmured again for the thousandth time, her red rimmed eyes glassed over with a new wave of tears. "I'm so, so sorr—"

"Yes, you're sorry. I heard. But I'm still bleeding so you apologies don't seem to be worth much, do they?"

"I just—"

"You promised you would stay in the car, didn't you?" John barked at her, "Well, _didn't you_?"

The louder he yelled, the smaller Hannah seemed to shrink into herself. At this point, she was in danger of disappearing into thin air.

"Yes, sir." She said meekly.

"And I had that Wendigo right in my sights until you decided to get a gun and get out of the car, snapping twigs clomping through the woods like an _idiot_. If you had just done like I ordered and like you _swore_ you would do, I'd have gotten that Wendigo and been in one whole piece right now. As it is, we barely got away with the skin of our teeth."

"John, I'm…"

"Quit your worthless apologies and do something useful, for fucks sake." Hannah's lip trembled and John took a deep breath and dropped to the bed, sitting on the edge. "Bring me my bag." He said, pointing to the worn leather duffle. His tone was gentler now that his temper had burned out a bit and he figured that the over confident girl kid had learned her lesson, but Hannah jumped to obey him as though he had shouted.

Girl. He reminded himself. She might have acted like a cocky marine and had the mouth of one too, but at that moment, she looked exactly as she truly was; a scared girl who was just realizing that she had gotten herself in way over her head. Tears clung to her cheek and dropped off her chin, tears that both Sam and Dean had stopped shedding when they were still in single digits.

_Man up_, he had told Dean when he was six and missing his Mother. Harsh, yes, and John hated the words the second that they left his lips. But Dean was blubbering for the soft arms of a dead woman and Sam was screaming his head off because he had the flu. The kid had to learn fast that crying solved nothing. There were more efficient ways to channel emotions than breaking down and wailing.

John was looking at a scared and crying teenage girl that was not his own and realized that he was in way uncharted territory here.

Hannah placed the bag next to him, all the while staring at her feet. John pulled out a half empty bottle of vodka and a medical kit. He took a long swig of the vodka, right from the bottle, before looking up at Hannah again.

"You know how to suture?" he asked, hoping that her weird expertise would pay off in this moment.

"You mean like stitches?" she asked, "You mean, like, you want _me _to…?" her voice trailed off as she pointed to John's shoulder.

"I'm going to take that as a 'no.'"

"I mean, shouldn't we go to a hospital or something? That's too much blood… I can't, I just can't—"

"Man up, Hannah." Said John, sharply. "You wanted a hunt? You got one. Someone fucked up," John looked pointedly at her, "And someone got hurt. We gotta take care of our own. You can do this because you _have _to do it. So, man up, Hannah. I need you right now."

At that, Hannah took a deep breath and forced her features back into their familiar expression of serious confidence.

John took three long, burning shots of the vodka before relinquishing the bottle to her.

"Ok, grab some of the gauze from the medical kit and clean the wound with the vodka. It will sterilize it."

John braced himself as he heard Hannah behind him, soaking the gauze in the alcohol. Hannah wordlessley handed the bottle back to him and John gave a weak smile despite himself. After seeing him take another shot, Hannah pressed the soaked cloth to the open wound.

John hissed at the sting, but, thankfully, Hannah didn't hesitate or pull away. Instead, she started wiping the cut clean with firm and efficient strokes. After a few seconds, a mixture of the vodka he had consumed and the numbness of his shoulder John relaxed slightly. He took another pull of vodka and rested his elbows on the tops of his thighs.

"I'm sorry I yelled earlier." He said gently. Hannah didn't respond, but he knew that he heard her as the hand on his back slowed its motion. "I got scared, kid. I don't always know how to handle scared, so I just get mad instead."

Hannah's hand stopped and she silently got up to throw away the bloodied gauze.

"Ok, now, bring me that fruit bowl over there." He said, pointing at the small decoration in the room, setting this particular motel apart as one where middle class men had affairs, not cheap street whores. If Hannah found his request peculiar, she didn't show it. John selected the orange at the top and gestured for Hannah to sit and watch him. Hannah settled herself on the floor in front of him as he pulled the needle and suture thread from his kit. "Peel the orange. We're going to sew it back together. And that's how you're going to learn to suture. The hardest part is the initial and final knot. "

John gently took the orange peel from her hand. He looked up at her to be sure she was watching. She was. Patiently he showed her how to do the knot. Then he showed her again. As he handed the orange peel to her, she mimicked his practiced hand. She was slow and overly meticulous and, despite this, her stitches were still uneven and imprecise. But it would have to do.

"You ready?" he asked her, reintroducing his lips to the vodka as he prepared himself.

Hannah's eyes were wide with unspoken fears. Fear that she would hurt him or make it worse. Fear that she would fail. But her jaw was set as she took the needle and suture thread in her hand standing to go and re position herself behind him.

The first prick of the needle through his skin was almost a comfort. There wasn't any turning back now. He felt her fumble a little behind his back as she compensated for the change of texture between his actual flesh and the orange peel, but felt another painful stab of reassurance as the needle started to actually suture. He could feel the stitches, lopsided, imprecise, inconsistent beneath her novice hand.

"You're doing great." He said, another swig of vodka later. "You're doing really good."

"Liar." Said Hannah.

John turned to look over his bad shoulder at her and saw her mouth formed into a self-deprecating smile. He gave a guilty snort and took another gulp from the bottle and she took the opportunity to shake out her cramping hand. John reached behind himself with his good arm and gave her a reassuring pat on the knee as he turned back to face forward, letting Hannah finish her work.

"Almost done," Hannah said after a few more minutes of quiet focus and John felt her pinch and tug at his skin as she formed the final knot. John breathed out a sigh of relief as he heard Hannah rustling around the medical box for scissors, glad that the worst part was over. Without him having to ask, Hannah started to wrap the fresh stitches, forcing him to sit up straight as she circled the bandage all the way around his torso.

When she was done, she and John stayed where they were for a few minutes, John slowly realizing that the bottle of vodka he'd been nursing was nearly empty, more though the soft and numb drunk feeling through his limbs and the drowsy haze pulling him down.

And suddenly, there were hands on him, again.

Small and tentative, they started at the ridges of the bandages, as though they were innocently checking their security. But then those hands were skimming south, along the sides of his ribs further and further until her fingertips were touching the fabric of his jeans.

"Hannah. Cut it out." Said John.

"Are you sure?" asked Hannah in a dangerously soft and breathy voice in his ear, her breasts pressed into his back.

"Yes, I'm sure. Off."

With a surprising lack of argument, Hannah leaned away from him. A little part of him was insulted that she acquiesced so easily. He had watched her bully Caleb mercilessly and relentlessly for a sandwich and _this_ she shrugged and walked away from?

Then he mentally beat that tiny insulted voice in his head to a pulp. That was a train of thought he was not even _allowed _to entertain.

He didn't need to bother being insulted as Hannah dropped onto her knees in front of him, where she had watched him stitch an orange peel back together. Except now she was watching him with an entirely different species of interest. Big brown eyes peering up at him with the same sort of want he had seen three years ago as the child held his arm, with fingers asking for something she didn't know she wanted.

But the sixteen year old at his feet was much more aware of what her body was craving and not shy about asking for it. Hannah's hands found his knees and her eyes searched his face, more analytically than lustfully, as though he were a gun she needed to reassemble or a demon she needed to exterminate. Her eyes following a halting path between his own eyes, his lips and the crotch of his pants.

And, John really really wished that he could blame more vodka than any one man should drink in a single night. Alcohol that would explain his slow reaction and bad judgment. Alcohol that could excuse the way that he was disgustingly aware of her small and perky breasts beneath her shirt or the way that her little lips formed an almost too perfect heart shape as she pursed them. But the alert and growing tension between his legs went and shot his 'drunk' excuse straight to Hell. No way was he drunk enough to be that dumb and still be able to get it up.

But, the fact was, the warmth and pressure of her hands as they traveled north was welcome. She pressed her weight into his thighs as she rose up to make her lips his level with his, her warm breath landing against his neck and ear as she hovered in front of him, tempting him into a huge pit of horribly sinful want.

And she pressed her lips against his, softly at first, then hungrily. She pressed herself closer to his body and let out a frustrated moan as he didn't reciprocate her advances.

John knew that he was notorious for his dubious moral code. He fought demons with more determination than anyone he knew. He would lay his life down a million times over to protect his sons.

But raising them as neo soldiers? Teaching them to steal and lie? Training them to risk their lives fighting a war that most of the world had the privilege of being blissfully unaware of? That didn't fall neatly into the category of "good parenting." Nothing John did fell neatly into any category.

Other hunters might not trust John with a teenage girl any more than they would trust a harpy with an infant, but Father Jim had called him a good man. Good men probably wouldn't have mentally fucked the girl ten times at lightning speed as soon as she pressed her pert tits into their back, but decent men wouldn't allow it to continue on that particular trajectory. More reluctantly than he'd ever admit, John put his hands on her hips and pushed her away.

"I said, 'No,' Hannah."

"You didn't mean it." She said, not even bothering to look up from his lips as he pulled them from her. "You want me. I can tell."

"Look, kid. I can't do this with you. You're pretty and smart. You've probably got boys lined up around the block, but not me. _We_ can't be like that."

"Give me one good reason."

"You're sixteen and I'm fo… not sixteen."

Hannah rolled her eyes, but instead of standing up hurt and humiliated, the shameless girl climbed into his lap.

Good men would have pushed her off. Bad men would have grabbed her thighs, warm and firm as they were. As usual, John fell somewhere in the middle and put his hands on the bed, clutching the sheets a little as Hannah adjusted her weight and created a filthy friction between their pants.

"I'm allowed to give you stitches but I'm not allowed to suck your cock?"

"Jesus, Hannah, where'd you learn to talk like that?"

"Is it working?"

"No," said John, his mouth was suddenly uncomfortably dry.

"I'm so wet and tight for you, John. Please let me suck you off." She lifted her hips an inch or two off of his pelvis, breathing into his neck and ear, her breasts were inches from his face. It was amazing how her words could make his throat dry and her body could make his mouth water simultaneously. She dropped her hips and met his semi hardness, rubbing against it and earning a moan from his lips. She grinned wickedly and repeated the motion.

His hands left the bed and landed on the outside of her thighs and she started kissing his neck and his ears, her fingers thrumming the fly of his pants.

And then John proved all those hunters who said he was reckless and selfish and downright untrustworthy right.

He turned his head to meet her lips with his as she were on their way back to mouthing his neck. Sixteen. She was sixteen and this was so very, very wrong and shameful and dirty and illegal. And John couldn't get enough. He knew it needed to stop. He knew he needed to step on the brakes before he did something truly awful and irreversible.

But her skin beneath his fingers felt so right. It felt so good. He just needed a few more inches of her tight, smooth flesh. He just needed a few more seconds of her mouth. Her lithe, young body, curling around his, hungry for _him._ She was just so _y__oung_. It should have turned him off, but it only revved him up more. John Winchester was a sick son of a bitch, but Hannah didn't seem to notice or mind. She was barely more than a child. She was the same age as his actual children. She was younger than Dean.

That did it.

"Stop, Hannah…" John's voice sounded more wrecked than he wanted. Peeling his arms off her was like trying to separate industrial magnets. "We…can't. We need to stop."

"No, it's ok." Said Hannah, locking her lips back to his.

But the moment was gone. John returned her kiss, but with less passion than before. Almost politely. There was no longer the frenzied climb to something inexcusably selfish and wrong. "John," moaned Hannah, frustrated, "John, it's ok. I have… protection."

If anything solidified his decision to pull out of her ravenous clutches, that was it.

"No, kid. That… that wasn't why we couldn't do this." John tried to pry Hannah from his lap, but she stubbornly wouldn't budge.

"Then why?"

"C'mon. You need me to spell it out for you? How about I'm old enough to be your father? How about you're not even eighteen? Maybe the fact that what we're doing is illegal and both Jim and Caleb have a lot of guns?"

"I can handle Father Jim and Caleb," said Hannah with an eye roll. "Besides, who says anyone has to know?"

"Ok. Off." John said, pushing Hannah with force off his lap. She stood reluctantly and sat at the head of John's bed, crossing her legs and leaning back, playing with the buttons on her shirt. She wasn't giving up the whole game so easily.

John decided to ignore her and went to the bathroom to check Hannah's handiwork in a mirror. The sutures were inconsistent, just like he had predicted, but not terribly so. For someone's first go, it was actually pretty impressive. As he moved his shoulder to inspect the work from a different angle, his eyes caught those of the man in the reflection. He was mildly surprised, as he always was, to see an old man staring back at him.

Forty wasn't old. Never really had been. But when John looked at Hannah, he felt ancient. Her body curved like a woman's. Her hands were soft and nimble with an unrealized potential for pleasure. But Hannah, _Hannah_, was so impossibly naive If anything, her blazing confidence just showed how young and inexperienced she truly was. Maturity didn't come from success, that was for damn sure. Maturity came from fucking up over and over and over until wide eyed enthusiasm became grim determination. If age could be measured in mistakes, John Winchester was as old as the dirt on the ground.

When John came back out, Hannah was still in his bed. Instead of reopening their argument, John turned off the light and moved over to her bed and plopped down on his side, facing away from her and resting his weight his good on his arm.

He was utterly unsurprised when Hannah slid herself beneath the blankets to join him. He was, however, shocked to feel skin, warm naked skin, press itself flush against his thin shirt.

"C'mon, kid. Cut it out." He said, but his voice was thin. It sounded more like a plea than anything else. "Put some clothes on and go back to your own bed. Please, Hannah. I'm not touching you tonight."

"Then you won't mind if I touch myself, then."

"Jesus, kid, seriously, where are you learning this shit?" Asked John as the pornographic image popped, unbidden, into his head, "You do this stuff with your boyfriends or something?"

"No." said Hannah, and John could see a gentle blush race across her features, lit from the streetlights outside their room, "I saw it in one of Caleb's dirty movies."

For the first time since she had made a conscious attempt to seduce him, Hannah seemed shy and hesitant as she moved her fingers down her body. John should have protested. He should have told her to stop. But he was tired of saying 'no.'

Every time she made him say it, the more obvious it became that the word was a lie.

Instead he watched her hungrily as she touched herself and bit her lip. Her eyes met his and she looked at him so earnestly that John had to lean forward and kiss her. She seemed to melt beneath him. His kiss was as gentle as the fingers that ran down her length before they found her hand between her legs.

And his hand replaced hers and he was the one who touched her and kissed her. As she got closer to her peak, she pulled from his lips and started breathing heavily into his chest, her hands gripping the muscled meat of his upper arms.

"I've thought about this," she whispered, voiced debauched and harsh as broken glass, "I've thought about you every time I did this."

"I will think of this," John whispered, smirking into her hairline, "I will think of this moment every time for the next two years."

Hannah's nails dug into his arms as she climaxed.

After a couple of seconds while she recovered, Hannah rolled over and reached for him, her hands going towards his almost fully hard dick. John grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

He wasn't sure why her touching him seemed to cross some sort of line that him touching her hadn't, but it did. John leaned forward again and gently kissed her to seal off any protest before it left her lips.

"We can't kid, we really, really can't. We need to wait until you're eighteen. It matters. It really fucking matters."

"Is that what you meant when you said you'd think of that for the next two years?" she asked, pulling her hand back from him without much of a fight. Her unabashed selfishness was almost amusing. She didn't seem to care about John's lines as long as she got hers. John had to grin in the darkness.

"I meant that you were so damn hot."

"Yeah. I got that. I meant the 'two years' part." Hannah said, smiling into his chest where her head was nestled. "You gonna finally fuck me when I'm eighteen?"

"I never said that." Said John, quickly.

"No, but you meant it." Said Hannah, knowingly. The self satisfied smirk he felt against him made him groan inwardly at his own weakness.

In the dark, with the naked girl in his chest, he realized that he had underestimated her alright. He hadn't wanted to take her with him on the hunt, somehow she wound up in his car with a gun in his hand. He had every intention of keeping things platonic with her, somehow he wound up kissing and fingering her in the motel room that seemed to be made for shameful acts. John surrendered a quiet, rumbling chuckle as he realized that Hannah was a damn genius.

"Go to sleep, kid." Said John. After a beat, he corrected himself, still smirking, he whispered, "Hannah. Go to sleep, Hannah."


	9. Chapter 9

**Holy shit, it has been a whole month since I've updated. I am so, so, so, sorry you guys. Truly.**

* * *

John Winchester looked around Crowley's office paradise with cold eyes.

Hannah watched his face seem to heal itself before her very eyes. Skin scabbing, healing and smoothing over as if the cuts had never been there in the first place. It seemed that in Hell, bodies healed quickly.

Hannah realized that it was because torturing an already scarred soul couldn't be as fun as ripping into whole, virgin flesh. She wondered how many times John's face had healed over just to be cut into again. She wondered how many times she would have to kiss his skin to erase the memories. How many soft journeys along his flesh her fingers would have to travel to unwrite the months of torture.

Crowley had vanished, as he tended to do. Hannah crossed her arms over her chest as she followed John around the office. He looked absurdly out of place in his bloodstained flannel and leather coat, walking stiffly through cubicles under fluorescent lighting.

"What the fuck, Hannah?" he asked as he finally dropped into a swivel chair.

"It's better, isn't it?" she asked, "I mean, sure, it's weird, but better than _that _place. Better than the torture."

John gave a grunt. Hannah decided to count that one as a "yes."

Hannah sat sullenly on the desk in the cubicle, her arms crossed in front of her and her legs swinging under her. If John wanted to be a dick about it, fine. Two could play at that game.

A strong hand reached out and stilled her leg as it followed its own momentum through the air. Hannah looked up at him, but her lips stayed in a thin, determined line and her brow was furrowed, bracing herself for an argument.

"Hannah," said John sadly, "Hannah, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I love you. Asshole."

John ran a hand down his face and let out a long, tired breath. An argument they'd had before. A topic Hannah kept on bringing up until she got the answer she wanted.

"You don't love me, kid. You don't know me and you don't know what love even is."

"I know that love is giving yourself up for the one you love. I know that love is about sacrifice."

"No, kid." Said John, shaking his head, "No, kid. That isn't what love is at all."

Hannah huffed and looked away.

"Well, that's what happened, so, there." She said, staring at her toes.

"We can't get out, Hannah. We can never go to Heaven. This is it for us, for the rest of eternity, unless you want to give being a demon a try." John shook his head and looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap, "That's the worst torture I can think of. Becoming the thing I hunted. Hurting the people I used to protect."

Hannah rolled her eyes.

"We can get out without becoming demons." She said, "Crowley promised that he'd find us a way out."

"You don't believe him, do you?" John asked, "You know he's going to bend over backwards to keep you under his thumb. Watch yourself, Hannah. That thing has thrived for centuries by finding loopholes in contracts, always making sure that the deal comes out in his favor. He won't just let you go, not without a fight."

"Despite what you've told me numerous times," said Hannah, coldly, "I'm not an idiot. I know that."

"So, what was your part of the deal?" he asked, "Not just your soul, not if he promised to find a way to get you out."

"Crowley needs some muscle. He wants to take over from Lilith and he needs some cannon fodder, I guess."

"He's going to start a war in Hell? And you're going to help him?"

"I suppose so."

"You stupid, stupid girl." He said, dropping his face into his hands so that the end of his statement came out muffled and soft.

In less than three steps, Hannah stood and walked over to his chair. John heard her movement and lifted his face out of his hands to look at her. His eyes were open and sad, looking at Hannah with heartbreak and disappointment.

Hannah slapped him as hard as she had ever hit anyone in her life.

John's jaw dropped. Hannah swung back to slap him again when he caught her wrist and shoved her away from him, to the other side of the small office cubicle. Undeterred, Hannah turned back to him, stomping forwards to keep up her assault. Her eyes were blurry with frustrated tears, but she seemed to be able to find John easy enough, managing to land one more strike against his cheek.

He caught her by the shoulders, turning her so that her back was in his chest, preventing any biting or scratching that she might try. Her legs flailed impotently in the air as John had locked his arms around her chest, securing her arms to her side.

Hannah kept fighting and scratching until her anger abated and the frustrated tears that had blurred her vision finally fell, creating rivers of defeat along her cheeks. She relaxed her body and within seconds, John's defensive lock became a hug, letting her turn in his arms and bury her face in his chest.

"Hannah, Hannah, Hannah. What am I going to do with you?" he asked as he rubbed her back.

Hannah gave a wet laugh at his familiar words. As she pulled out of his chest, she saw an angry red welt, roughly the size and shape of her own hand, blossoming against John's cheek.

"I'm sorry." She murmured, stroking her hand along the same path, with tenderness this time. "I'm so sorry."

John turned his head and kissed her palm against his cheek. Hannah's hand followed the trail down his body, over rough and scratchy beard to the vulnerable planes of his throat and finally to the broad shoulders and torso. She laid her palm flat against his stomach, fingers gently pulling at fabric so that it bunched up, revealing the tempting few inches above his belt.

Hannah's other hand snuck beneath the layers, making a quick map of the topography of his chest and following the trail of hair as it went lower and lower and finally disappeared into his pants.

John made a throaty noise of protest and shook his head. Hannah paid him no mind. If she had always let up when his conscience kicked in, she'd have never gotten anywhere with him.

Her lips latched onto his collarbone as her fingers found something hard and throbbing in his pants. Hard, throbbing and much, much larger than she had expected. Hannah told John as much and that throaty noise of protest returned.

"Hann—Hannah, stop—no—we can't." he said, forcing the words out between strokes of his cock.

"Fuck," she moaned, pulling her lips from his neck where a satisfying purple oval was already starting to appear. "Why, John? First I was too young. I'm twenty three now, all grown up and drinking and everything. Or… I was. I'm dead now. So are you. But I think that strengthens my argument. We're already in Hell, John. And Caleb and Father Jim are—" Hannah's throat tightened and she shook her head, unable to finish the statement, "So, what are you afraid of? What could happen? I know you think I'm an idiot for loving you. You think I've ruined everything by dying for you, but please, give me this. Finally. I've wanted you for so, so long."

John's hand caught Hannah's wrist which had been jacking him off during her entire monologue. Her fingers were wet with precome which she licked off with a pornographic hum of pleasure. John forced his eyes closed and shook his head.

"Because this time _we're in Hell._"

"John, I'm so horny. Just get over yourself and fuck me, please."

Something carnal flashed in John's eyes as she spoke, but once again, he forced them closed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He turned from her, lust blown and hungry for something his body seemed more than happy to oblige.

"No, Hannah, it isn't me this time," he turned and looked at her, and she had resumed her seat on the desk, though this time with her knees parted and her eyes lidded, sucking on her lower lip.

"That's part of becoming a demon." He said, "To make your home in Hell. Once you start doing the things you did up there, down here, you sort of belong here. You start to be drawn to Hell, no matter where you are. Demons get sent to Hell when we exorcise them because Hell is the place where they eat and drink and… fornicate. Once you start… it's a slippery slope. So we can't Hannah. Not a drop to drink, not a bite to eat and no… fornicating."

Hannah must have turned pale because John's face fell.

"You haven't… "

"I drank," said Hannah weakly, nodding ."I was so thirsty and… and Crowley…"

"Oh, Hannah… Oh Hannah." He said, shaking his head. He started easing out of the office "Oh, Hannah, no."

Her eyes were glassy as she watched him walk away.

"John?" she asked.

"Hannah, it's going to get worse. It's going to get stronger. You can't stop now. That desire to complete the transition is just going to get stronger and stronger until you can't fight it anymore. I've seen… And I can't, Hannah, I can't."

The sounds of John's boots faded away as he disappeared, leaving Hannah alone.


	10. Chapter 10

Caleb walked through the doors of the forlorn church, a bag of guns slung over his shoulder and the confident swagger of a young man returning home after a long time gone.

"Yo, brat!" he called into the silent altar, the smile on his face invalidating any insult that left his lips, "Hannah, get your ass out here! I'm home and I brought company, so don't be a bitch about it!"

It was Father Jim, however, who stuck his head out of the small office.

"Barely a handful of years hunting and I see you've adopted John's rather untoward vocabulary." But the older priest smiled broadly, pulling the young man, fully grown and filling out impressively now, into a fatherly hug. "I've missed you, Caleb."

Caleb relaxed into the hug before Father Jim pulled away and patted him proudly on the shoulder. Seeming to just notice him, Father Jim looked over Caleb's shoulder at John and gave him a friendly nod. John returned it, awkwardly, feeling uncomfortable at his interruption of the family moment between the two.

"Where's Hannah?" Caleb asked. Father Jim heaved a tired sigh and nodded over his shoulder towards the back of the church.

"Working out, as always." He said. He shook his head. "She probably can't hear you." Father John made a gesture to his own ears, miming headphones.

Caleb broke into a wicked grin and started heading down the hall.

"Watch out for her roundhouse kick." Father Jim called after him, "It's faster than it should be."

Caleb made a gesture of salute before creeping down the hall.

* * *

"John, my dear old friend. As always, I'm happy to see you." Said Father Jim, motioning for John to follow him down the hall to the office he had appeared from.

"Glad to be back, Jim. You look exhausted."

Father Jim gave a rueful smile and shrugged.

"Yes, well, the lord provides challenges for us in all shapes and sizes."

John didn't know what to say to that, so he nodded sympathetically.

"Hannah is… has always been, I suppose, a handful." Father Jim said with a sigh, "I love her like the daughter that circumstances have never aligned to provide me. She and Caleb are my kin. I never realized how much Caleb must have acted as buffer between us. Her temper gets the better of her more often than not. When Caleb lived here, she would take it out on him. Now, however, it is just the two of us and she has started to… rebel."

John cleared his throat. When Sam left, never to come back home, John had never realized how much energy he had spent simply trying to match the boy's stubborn temper. And when Sam left, John suddenly realized, with heart sinking horror, that a very large part of his relationship with Dean had been using him as a mediator between himself and his youngest. If an order came from him, Sam would most likely do the exact opposite out of spite or simply a rebellious nature. If an order came from Dean, Sam would happily fall into line. Sam trusted and loved his brother as a hybrid parent, friend and sibling and John had never realized how much that changed the way he treated his oldest until it was too late.

"At first it was a nose ring." Continued Father Jim, either not noticing or ignoring John's reverie,"Revolting, by the way. Then it was the tattoos. Then, I found out that she dropped out of high school…"

"Dean dropped out too. Made him get his GED, though. It isn't so hard." John said, trying to be reassuring.

"She is at that age, I suppose." Said Father Jim, "A woman in appearance, child in temper and teenager in attitude. Eighteen is a potent time in a child's life."

John swallowed hard, hoping that Father Jim wouldn't notice his sweating palms.

"Eighteen already?" He asked, voice croaking, almost giving him away.

"Well, probably. Of course, we have no idea when her birthday is. When she was about ten, we picked a day out of the calendar and said it was her birthday. April 7th, by the way."

John nodded. His throat too tight to form real words at the moment

"Now everything has changed." Jim continued. He gave a hard laugh, "Now she and Caleb get along like the brother and sister that they have been raised as, and she and I can hardly hold a civil conversation anymore." He shook his head, "I suppose it is less than admirable, but a little part of me had always hoped that she and Caleb would come around to each other. Less sibling, more childhood sweetheart, but Caleb is quite a bit older than Hannah. I suppose it is hard for him to remember her as a child and then look at her romantically."

John's pulse quickened_. Jim must know_, he thought wildly _He's baiting me with this, I know it._

But either Father Jim was an impeccable actor or he really didn't suspect anything as he heaved another put upon sigh and turned the conversation to John's latest hunt. And John tried to answer his questions clinically. He tried to pretend that his cock didn't thicken as he thought of Hannah, nice and legal Hannah, sitting around waiting for him for six whole weeks. Tried to swallow the completely unwarranted jealousy that rose in his throat like bile at the idea if Caleb and Hannah rolling around in bed together.

John had never felt like more of a creepy pervert in his entire life. He had also never been so impatient to simply lay his eyes and his hands on the forbidden fruit of a far too young woman.

* * *

Caleb had blocked the round house kick easy enough. It may have been a strong blow, but kicks were slower than punches. As he pulled the leg from under her, dropping her unceremoniously on her back, he made to pin her to the mat. She clocked his chin hard enough for him to curse and then laugh as she glared up at him. He sat up, still straddling her, and pulled the earbud from her ear.

"Hey brat."

"Hey asshole" she said, her glare becoming an affectionate smile in the blink of an eye.

"Nice ink," said Caleb, turning her arm over to better inspect the art on her shoulder. An angel lifting Jesus to heaven. Even when she was passive aggressively telling Father Jim to suck it, she still sought his approval. There were snippets of loyalty in all her rebellion. She watched him inspect her arm before reaching up and tracing his new pink scar along his neck.

"Nice battle scar."

"Well, some of us have to actually hunt while you sit around eating bon bons." Hannah rolled her eyes and flipped Caleb onto his back straddling him this time. He laughed as she did so, and the good humor contagiously crept onto her face.

"Let me at those motherfuckers." She said venomously, and Caleb couldn't find a joke in her unwavering determination. He had bruises to show that when Hannah meant business, someone was going to get messed up.

"You got all grown up while I was away." He said softly, looking over her.

"Next time, don't stay away so long." She returned with the same gentle tone.

"I was going to take you with me next time." He said, and as the words sank in, Hannah gave a very un-Hannah-like squeal and pulled him into a crushing hug. "Assuming Father Jim doesn't mind, of course."

"I'm eighteen. I don't need his blessing to do anything."

"You want it, though." He said, and Hannah bit the inside of her cheek, all but admitting defeat. Caleb sat up, dislodging Hannah as he went. "Well, he wasn't so mad when you went off with John. Maybe old man Winchester will vouch for you."

"Don't call him that."

"Geez, sorry." Said Caleb, throwing his hands up in surrender. "Someone's a little 'hot-for-teacher' don't you think?" Hannah turned pink and gave a knowing smile before Caleb froze and looked her over again with new scandalized interest, "Hannah? You're kidding, right?"

Hannah shrugged and kept smiling, standing up and letting Caleb get to his feet.

"Gross." He said hesitantly, "You aren't going to molest him at dinner or anything, right?"

"He's here?" she asked hopefully. Caleb nodded reluctantly and Hannah gave him a just-a-little-too-hard-to-be-truly- playful swat before turning and rushing up the stairs to the front altar.

* * *

John rubbed a towel over the lightly weathered skin as he washed the car ride off of himself in the small bathroom in the back of the church.

The beard was turning silver around the temples and the eyes crinkled noticeably, even when he wasn't smiling. He was starting to creep up on that "old" category, slowly but surely. He had two grown sons. His chest hair was turning silver and the parts of his hands that weren't smooth and calloused were wrinkled from neglect and hard work.

Jim had talked to him as though he were a parent talking to another. The generational line was drawn and Hannah was on the other side of it, untouchable. God, John had never felt filthier in his life until Jim was talking about Hannah's teenage rebellion and John's first thought was of a tattoo on a slender, tight back, just above a softly rounded ass, that would bounce as John pounded into her. Jim mentioned a nose ring and John wondered what else the wild child had pierced.

John was a sick son of a bitch. Hopefully Hannah still wouldn't care.

Now. Now would be a perfect opportunity to slip out of the church. To drive away and never see the girl again. Not even tiptoe that line, he had gotten so dangerously close the last time. He slung his bag over his shoulder and slipped out of the bathroom, walking down the hall to the living room where Jim had generously offered him the couch.

Last chance to be a decent man. Last chance to leave.

Then he heard her and his stomach clenched with undeniable need as she laughed at something Caleb had said, rushing up the stairs from the basement. Her eyes widened in surprise as they locked onto John's, but the moment of vulnerability was short lived as they hardened into ones of determination. John was the prize that Hannah was going to take home and the thought terrified him and turned him on like nothing else had. John wasn't going anywhere.

Caleb stomped up the stairs behind her and froze as he saw her looking John over in the least subtle way possible. He raised his eyebrows between them and made some sort of flimsy excuse that John didn't even hear. Before he knew it, Caleb was gone and Hannah was stalking towards him, unwavering in her intent. John gulped. He opened his mouth to say 'hello' or something, anything, really. He was a full grown man who should not have been scared of talking to a girl. But Hannah was intoxicating, overwhelming, hot passion that had been his obsession every lonely night since he ran his fingers through her hot wetness all those years ago. It felt like a lifetime had passed, and yet, with that same hungry look in her eyes, it was like that night all over again.

Hard wall against his back, smaller hands on his chest before he was devoured alive, raw and needy. Hannah's tongue was between his lips as he opened them to protest and no demon, ghost or ghoul could peel his hands from her body as he touched her. Hands on her back, sliding up to knot in her hair, he wrapped his hand around the base of her pony tail and pulled away. One of them had to be rational, and John doubted that it could be the hot headed teenager.

That thought should have bothered John a hell of a lot more than it did.

"Hello." He said, trying for cool and ending up with a breathy whisper. Hannah smirked.

"Hey." She said, "I'm eighteen now."

"Nice non sequitur."

"Nice use of the phrase, non sequitur."

Hannah's hand slid between their pelvises, pressed against each other so hard that John marveled at the fact that such small and deft fingers could slide between them. Hannah slid her palm experimentally over the hard on in his pants and John let out a shuddering breath.

"Fuck, Hannah" he said, eyes rolling to the back of his head.

"That is the general idea." She said, "You know, I had hoped that somehow you would figure out when my birthday was and come take me. Just sneak into my room and fuck me. I thought about you and me and I came three times that night as I touched myself."

"Jesus, that would have been-" John started and then took a fortifying breath, "We gotta cool it, kid." He said, pushing her away from him a couple of crucial inches, "We can't… You're still too young, Hannah. Legal doesn't mean 'ok' it just means not so horrifying. You can't even drink yet. You're a child."

"You really shouldn't call me 'child' and 'kid' while you're still sporting a boner for me," Hannah said icily and John remembered how much she hated it when he talked down to her. How stubborn the thirteen year old had been after he called her a little girl.

She _had _been a child, though. The vast majority of John's time spent with her had been spent in the company of a child. But that time had been far and few between. He had to squint to see the ten year old he had saved from the old trailer. Even now, it took a moment to recognize the sixteen year old he had started it all with. John's lust was cooling from the explosive flare to a low ember and he grudgingly figured that as long as he was near her, he would always be a little turned on, so he made his peace with it.

He leaned his head back against the wall, safely out of the kissing danger zone and took her in with more scrutiny. Seeing the skin covering that hot flesh he wanted to melt into. Looking at the face he had held and tasted. He lifted her arm out and inspected the tattoos. He cocked his head as he looked over her piercings.

"What did you do to yourself?" he asked softly.

"You don't like them?" Hannah asked. John shrugged. He reached forward and flicked the nose ring that had offended Jim so badly. Rather than a discreet little stud on the side of her nose that John had expected, the tiny 'u' shaped ring slid right between each nostril like a cartoon bull.

"It just is different." He said.

"Really screwed up my pretty face, didn't I?" asked Hannah and when John looked up to her, he saw a strained, self-deprecating smile.

Hannah had never been classically beautiful. Her face was long and narrow, her eyes were a few centimeters too far apart and her mouth was almost pointed and triangular. She was more geometric than sensual, but she was a far cry from ugly. The eyes, perhaps a little on the small side, burned with a passion that was, frankly, intimidating and John knew from experience that the thin harsh lips were still soft and plush enough to make him throw reason and self-control out the window.

"I always thought you were pretty." He said softly, more because she needed to hear it than because it was true, "I still think you're pretty."

Hannah beamed at the attention and John leaned into her and kissed her softly against her lips. Hannah began to intensify the kiss but John pulled away again.

"Can't, Hannah. I can't."

She was too young. He was too old. Jim, his old, faithful friend, trusted him. Caleb had a terrifyingly good aim. There were a million and a half reasons for him to get into his truck and drive to the closest city, find the darkest bar and the first willing woman closer to an appropriate age to get onto her back for him. Hell, he'd never bought it before, but if paying for a whore or succumbing to the knowing grin on the _kid_ in front of him were his only options, old whore it was. He just needed to _not _be here, feeling the things he was feeling and wanting the things he was wanting from her.

She looked him over with analytical eyes that travelled across his lips to the still partly stiff member in his pants. Against his will, he felt himself tighten as her attention drifted to his cock, and the knowing grin on her face told him that his arousal was much more obvious than convenient.

"My room is the second door on the left." She said, stepping away from him and giving him the space that his head was telling him he needed. His body, however, was screaming at the loss. She started down the hall to the kitchen where John heard the soft sounds of Jim and Caleb preparing dinner, oblivious to the crimes that John was committing against their trust. Hannah turned and looked at him, smirking, "You still owe me a birthday present. I think you have a pretty good idea of what I want."

Sweaty, writhing bodies. Panted breath. Sheets rustling, hands grabbing, thrusting, warmth and human need. The promise of an open door. A forbidden fruit, begging to be taken.

John Winchester was a sick son of a bitch. He should have gotten out of there when he had the chance.

But he knew that he wasn't going anywhere.

* * *

God, was he really doing this?

The hand hesitated over the handle to the second door on the left. Yes. He really was doing this. If the drinking and cursing and lies hadn't done it, then this at least made it official.

He was going to Hell.

The darkness had settled into the church like a blanket, hiding his sin and his shame. He held a hand over the door frame to muffle the creak of it as it opened. Sneaking made him feel dirtier. The secrecy made it hotter. He could worry about the implications of that tomorrow because all through dinner, coffee and dessert he had been half hard and waiting for this moment.

He paused as he found Hannah… asleep.

Coy and faking innocent slumber didn't seem like Hannah's MO. From across the room, he saw her breathing slow and steady. It was better this way, he decided. He wasn't about to wake her up to fuck her. That was the line and John was a little relieved to find it. He was wondering if there had ever been one. He watched her sleep for a few lingering seconds, her hard determined expression soft. The knowing smirk smoothed. She was pretty, he decided. Not in a 'cover of the magazine' sort of way, but she was pretty nonetheless. Innocent and youthful, the tattoos along her arms covered by the blanket, the shadow of her hair covering her nose ring.

And for the thousandth time that night, John turned to walk away from the lust and the obsession and the carnal sin that was Hannah. His body mourned the loss of hot wet promise between her legs but he was also infinitely relieved that he didn't end up crossing that line. He was a decent man and fate or God or some sort of karmic intervention prevented him from doing something selfish and awful. She was too young. He was too old. He left her untouched, as it should be.

He forgot to muffle the doorframe with a calloused hand and it creaked softly as he opened it to step out of her room.

"John?" came a soft voice from Hannah's bed. His stomach dropped, his pulse quickened, and he groaned inwardly. He wasn't going anywhere.

"Go back to sleep, Hannah. Didn't mean to wake you."

"I was waiting for you." She whispered, "I must have fallen asleep. I thought you might not come."

"I thought that too."

"I'm glad you did."

"Hannah—"

"I was _waiting _for you" she said again, and John heard the blanket slide away from her as she sat up on the bed. She was barely lit from the window by the bed, so her body was still mostly in the dark. But John could see her naked silhouette. Naked.

She was _waiting_ for him.

The devil himself pulled John towards her. A demon brought lifted his hand and ran it across her cheek, down her neck and over the small, firm nipple. Her hands found his waist as he was standing while she was sitting. They started sliding up under his shirt and feeling his skin like he had never let her do that night so many years ago. That night when he was stronger, better, more righteous or at least less terrible. John Winchester was not a good man. Hannah didn't seem to mind.

"We shouldn't—I shouldn't—you're too young."

"Then why are you here?" she said softly, sliding the shirt up his chest and over his torso, rendering his upper body as naked as hers.

"I never wanted to be the sort of man who does this."

"Then why are you here?" she asked again, guiding him down to her bed. He leaned over her, his still clothed legs straddling hers. She pulled him down further so that his weight was against her, naked chest against naked chest and John lost all control that he possessed, which apparently, wasn't much to begin with.

He moaned as he rutted against her. He shifted his weight so that he was nestled between her legs and he began to move against her, over the blankets on her bed and the pants he still wore. Hannah's lips found his and they kissed and rocked together until John grew dizzy from the lack of oxygen. He sat up on his knees and Hannah followed his movement, watching him with wary eyes. His hands went to his pants and Hannah's eyes grew wide with lust and an expression that must have been purely Hannah because John couldn't name it.

His thumb hesitantly undid a button of denim and Hannah chewed her lower lip. John waited for her to look back up at him before he continued. When she did, he raised his eyebrows. This was it; the point of no return. No more harmless kisses and dry humping. No more fingers. When John's pants came off it would be cock and pussy and hardcore sex. John needed Hannah's approval, even if the unsure moment floating in the air terrified hime.

She nodded with a nervous smile and started to kick the blankets off of herself. John got down to his underwear before he saw the juice from her sex and smelled her musk. He almost couldn't help himself and he reached forward to stroke it. She sighed and John leaned forward again, pressing his lips to her little button and kissing it. Hannah gave a spasm of surprise, so John started working the clit with his tongue. Hannah moaned and slid her fingers into his hair. He smiled against her.

"I suppose your boyfriends don't do this sort of thing," he murmured, looking up over her tense body to find lust blown eyes. " One of the benefits of screwing an old man." He said with a grin again as went back to going down on her. His dick gave a hard throb at its lack of attention and John pulled away from Hannah's inviting legs to wedge a thumb under the waistband of his boxers.

"I've never…" she whispered.

"Never gotten head before? Lots of guys your age are still insecure about that sort of thing. They'll grow out of it. In the meantime…" he said, trailing off and smiling and leaning in to kiss her.

"No… I never…"

John froze. A thousand little warning bells were ringing in his ears. Plenty of girls her age didn't like giving head either. Maybe that was it. Please, please, let that be it.

"I never did this before." Said Hannah softly, "I never had a boyfriend."

"Hannah, you aren't a—"

"It's supposed to be a gift." She said softly, her eyes searching his face for his reaction. "I saved it. I wanted it to be you."

"Virgin. You're a virgin."

"Well, yeah."

"Fuck, no." said John, scrambling to sit up and put as much distance between them as possible. His hard cock turned flaccid. His skin turned to ice. He was wrong before. There was the line. Right there. Wide as the Mississippi. "Hannah, no. What were you thinking?"

"I couldn't stop thinking about you after… after that hunt. After you kissed me and touched me. I didn't care about the boys in my class anymore. I only cared about you. Only wanted you."

"Hannah. I never wanted this." He said, grabbing his pants and pulling them on. He saw her eyes water and took a deep breath. Girl. She was an insecure teenage girl and this was reason number one that he shouldn't have sex with her. She was a _kid_. What had he done?

"You aren't supposed to want it to be with someone like me, Hannah." He said, "It should be with someone special. Someone you love."

"I think you're special."

"That's not… I'm not… I have to go, Hannah. I can't be here."

"John, wait." She said, and it was louder than it should have been, But John was running out of her room, pulling his boots and shirt on as he fled. He needed to get rip roaring drunk and then vomit. Or vice versa. It wasn't clear which would come first, but the need for both was obvious.

"Hannah?" asked Caleb's sleepy voice as he stuck his head out into the hallway in time to see John, half naked, stepping out of her room. The kid's face fell faster than John had ever seen. Vomit. He was going to vomit first. Caleb reached behind his bedroom door and came out with a rifle.

"_What the fuck did you do?"_ he demanded, aiming the weapon at John. John really didn't want to get shot, but if anyone deserved the right to pull the trigger, it was Caleb. Either Caleb or—

"What is going on?" asked Father Jim, stepping out into the hallway to join Caleb and John. He saw Caleb's gun first. Then he took in John's state of undress. Then John's proximity to Hannah's room.

"What are you doing, Winchester?" Jim asked in a voice so level and venomous that John wished he had yelled. John deserved to be yelled at and hit and forcibly removed from the premises. He didn't deserve Jim's sad eyes, looking for a reason to still trust him. Looking for any trace of the good man that he once claimed John was.

"Leave him alone, Caleb. Put the gun down." Hannah joined the men in the hall and John wished that she had taken the extra four seconds to put her tee shirt on right side in.

"Hannah." Father Jim said in that eerily calm voice, "Go back into your room. I'll talk to you after I talk to Mr. Winchester."

"No." she said, stepping forwards, between John and Caleb's gun, looking entirely unafraid and a little annoyed.

Jim looked at Caleb and nodded his head over his shoulder. Caleb sighed and lowered his gun, reaching for Hannah's arm. She jerked out of his grip and ignored him, looking angrily at Jim.

"Don't you hurt him." She snarled, "If you're going to be mad at one of us, be mad at me. I started it. I wanted it. I love him, so if you hurt him, I'll never forgive you."

Once Hannah said 'love' John felt the bile and disgust rise up in his throat. Jim didn't even bother to acknowledge Hannah's temper. Instead, he looked over her head to John with an unflinching glare that said, 'see what you've done.'

Caleb grabbed Hannah's arm again and dragged her away. She cast another look at Jim and John before Caleb pulled her around the corner into the basement. John couldn't watch her go, though he could feel her try and catch his eye. He stared guiltily at the ground. Jim was the first to speak.

"If I weren't a Christian," he said levelly, "I'd shoot you, Winchester."

"That'd be fair."

"I can't even look at you, John." Said Jim, turning away, "I can't believe… she was sixteen."

"No," John said suddenly, he couldn't have Jim think that. John was wrong and greedy, but it wasn't _that. _"We didn't. Tonight was the first…"

"You expect me to believe you now?" Jim asked harshly. "Sixteen? Eighteen? She's a child, John. She doesn't understand sex and love at all. She said she _loves _you. Do you perceive how _wrong_ that is? How many women have you been with, John? Since Mary died, have you even been close to loving any one of them? "

"I never lied to her. I never led her to believe that I—"

"You think she can tell the difference? Between infatuation and love? Between obsession and love? Sex and love? Lust and love? She thinks she loves you. Do you love her?"

John shook his head 'no' as he looked at the ground. Obsessed. He had been obsessed with her. Her hard headed temper, her confidence, her passion. He didn't love her. He never thought he had.

"I think I should go." John said quietly.

"I think that's a good idea." Jim agreed coldly, turning from John to the basement where Caleb had taken Hannah. "Dean can always call me. But you, John, I don't think we can work together anymore. I don't think I can trust you anymore."

"That's fair." He said without looking back as he was walking to collect his things. Guilt physically heavy against his shoulders.

* * *

Father Jim opened the door to the basement and found Caleb's back. The older boy had stood against the door as Hannah paced and cursed in the basement. She shot a cold look up at Father Jim as he stepped in.

"Where's John?" she asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Gone. Forever."

"You jerk. You asshole. I _told _you not to hurt him. I _told _you that I love him."

"Hannah, for once in your life, you listen to me. You are going to stay in this basement until John drives off. You are never going to see him again and that's final."

But Hannah wasn't even listening as she shoved past the priest, hearing that John was still around. She ran out the front door to see John climbing into his truck.

"_Wait! John, wait!" _she called, rushing out to meet him. John froze, but his eyes were still on the bags in his hands. Hannah panted as she ran up to meet him.

"John, take me with you." John shook his head, 'no.' Hannah gave out a frustrated noise, grabbing the bags from his hands and forcing him to look at her. "Listen to me! Why doesn't anyone listen to me? I love you, John. I love you and I want to go with you. I don't care where we go. Just take me. It's ok. I'll be with you."

"You don't love me, kid."

"Don't call me kid." She said, but there was fear in her voice. It couldn't end like this. She had imagined this moment a thousand times, asking John to take her with him. Driving off into the sunset with the man she loved. He didn't call her 'kid' in the fantasy. He just kissed her and they took off together. John hazarded a glance at her and then looked away quickly as he saw her teary eyes. He violently took his bags from her hands and threw them into the seat. Hannah grabbed the sleeve of his coat as he made to follow them up into the truck and away from this mess.

"John. I'm sorry they found out. I never wanted that. But I do love you. That wasn't a lie."

"Ki—Hannah, no. You don't know what you're saying."

"I know how I feel, thank you very much."

"You were infatuated with me. You were attracted to me and I took advantage of that and I shouldn't have because you don't know _anything _yet."

"Don't be mean, John."

"Don't be fucking naive" he snapped, "Men lie. Men are perverts and they just want sex from you. You need to be able to tell the fucking difference between love and… well, fucking."

"You're not like that."

"Let go of me Hannah. Go get a boyfriend your own age. Then you'll understand."

"I only want you."

"Let go of my coat, Hannah."

"I love you."

"You don—" John started to yell before he controlled himself. "Let go, Hannah."

"Say it back."pleaded Hannah, "I know you're scared, but say it back to me. You love me because I love you."

"You're eighteen and I'm almost fifty and that isn't how love works. You don't love me. You don't love me so stop saying it." He pulled his arm again, Hannah just clung to the leather of his sleeve tighter. "Let go, Hannah." She was just crying and shaking her head 'no.'

John slapped her.

The tears that had been sitting like pools in her eyes fell now, cascading down her face as she stumbled back and let out a yelp of surprise. John climbed into his truck and drove off, fast as he could. Not looking back.

If John was good at anything in this world, it was driving away and not looking back.

* * *

**Gosh, I'm so sorry about never updating. I hate myself for it too, you aren't alone. Please review, even if it is just to tell me that you're still reading it, despite the fact that I never update and am unworthy of your love. **


	11. Chapter 11

**I bet you thought this day would never come. Well, it has. Warning, pretty graphic shit up in dis chapter. Also, I'm a little toasted, so bear that in mind. **

* * *

Hannah wiped the tears from her face as though they were burning her. John had once told her to "man up." She could be strong because he needed her to be strong.

He needed her help, he just had never known how to ask for it. He loved her, he was just too afraid to say it. So Hannah needed to man up. The phone in her cubicle started ringing and she had a strong desire to throw it across the room.

Anger was comforting in its familiarity if nothing else. Hannah latched onto it.

"What?" she snapped into the receiver.

"Hello," said the cool female voice of Crowley's mannequin receptionist, "Mr. Crowley would like to see as soon as is convenient."

"Fine." Snapped Hannah.

"Very good. Is now a—" but Hannah slammed the phone down before she could finish. She marched towards the ornate office, this time with little regard for the office worker extras. She plowed through the crowd of them and they simply stayed staring blankly forward, their faces identical and waxy. Each bounced away from her, as though she had a foot wide radius of space they all needed to respect. She almost wanted them to take the brunt of her hit as she shouldered past them. She almost wanted them to stumble. She was shaking with her need for control and exerting pain was deliriously addictive form of it.

Crowley was standing at the window when she marched in and barely spared her a glance over his shoulder as she fumed at the back of his head.

"We really need to work on your professional attitude." he said.

"You broke your end of the deal."

"That is a very dangerous thing to say, girl. Be sure that you think those sorts of accusations through before you blurt them out."

"You said we could get out of here without becoming one of _you_," Hannah curled her lips at the end of the comment with disgust, "You said we could walk out of here, two whole souls. Then you poisoned me."

"First of all, poppet, I already told you that it was a stupid idea and that it had never been done before. Second of all, idiot child, I'm a bloody demon. I disclosed all pertinent information prior to our… transaction… there is a certain level of buyer's risk when you sell your soul."

"I'll kill you."

"Love to see you try. Tell me how that goes."

Hannah stomped towards him, fury in her eyes as she zeroed in on the demon. Crowley gave a tilted smirk before flicking his wrist. Hannah was suddenly flat on her back. She scrambled to stand and Crowley tilted his head; she was bound by invisible weights on the ground.

"You'll have to keep me like this forever. I'll never, _never _stop trying to kill you." Hannah spat. Crowley looked her over thoughtfully and smiled quietly to himself as he turned his back on her. When he faced her again, the smile was gone. He flattened his palm in the air and suddenly Hannah felt a heavy weight on her chest, slowly, so, so, slowly she felt her lungs be crushed beneath it, every breath was shorter than the last as the weight pressed into her.

Crowley walked over and squatted by her side.

"I never wanted it to come to this," he said wistfully, "I was going to take over Hell and you were to be my Lieutenant." He reached out and patronizingly stroked the hair against her face and Hannah wanted to scream as her skin crawled from the touch. "You still have a soul, mostly. We can make another deal. "

"If you think I'm going to trust—"

"You heard what you wanted to hear, last time. You saw what you wanted to see. Now I'm coming to you with a negotiation, no mind games, no tricks."

"I hate the sight of you."

"I can't undo the damage to your own soul, but I can do everything in my power to preserve John's. Would that make you happy? I'm explicitly saying that John Winchester will walk out of Hell with his human soul or I will die by your hand."

"You will die." Corrected Hannah, "If a single scratch mars his soul, then you will die, period. That way you can't kill me and get out of it."

"By gum, I think you've got it." Crowley cooed proudly.

"What do you need from me? You already have my soul."

"Your loyalty." Said Crowley simply. Hannah snorted. "Your obedience, at any rate. If I say you must rip a soul in two pieces, you do it. If I say that you kill a man, you do it. John Winchester will walk out of here as a human soul, it has never been done before, but I will stake my life on this promise."

"Deal." Hannah said without hesitation.

Crowley grinned again and suddenly the weight was being lifted off of her chest. She stood, free from her invisible restraints and hovered over in front of Crowley's desk. as he walked around to his own side. He reached into a drawer.

"You've tasted the wine of Hell. You know how it works?"

"If I eat and drink I become a demon, right?"

"Yes. You must do all three. Eat, drink and make merry. Otherwise, you will be in constant agony, neither belonging there or here. You cannot go back and undrink. You can only go forward." Hannah crossed her arms over her chest and Crowley's expression softened as he stepped towards her, "You will be stronger, after."

"I'll be a demon, after."

"Yes." Hannah took a shuddering breath at Crowley's confirmation. "We're not all built the same," he said, gesturing around his office, "Who says that Hell has to be torture? I do not believe in innocence, even when I was a human, I did not believe in innocence. I do believe in cruelty. This, God, these angels, they send us here to rot and suffer because we don't fit in with them? Because we question them? Because we are human and flawed and they made us that way, then they stand there on their pedistals and damn _us_? Might I remind you that Lucifer is an angel; he's never been human? He tortures us because he hates us, we're like rats he collects just to exterminate. Look at what I want to create, a place of… existence."

"And power. You want power."

"Yes. And so do you, I can see it in you, I could always see it in you. But a hunger for power doesn't always mean a hunger to extract pain. Hell is a flawed system. I recommend a new way of thinking. I'm a demon, but am I truly so terrible?"

"Ok." Said Hannah softly, "Ok, I'll do it."

Crowley pulled his hand from the desk drawer, it was wrapped around a pomegranate. He pulled a knife from the same drawer and easily sliced the fruit in half. Hannah gave a weak smile.

"Kinda poetic." She said softly. Crowley shrugged but returned her gentle smile. He picked a seed from the pomegranate and walked around his desk so that she was trapped between him and the hardwood surface. He held the seed up to her mouth and hesitated.

"So, my dear Persephone, the deal is not final yet. You are welcome to sit in agony between Hell and Earth. I cannot force this upon you."

Hannah parted her lips and Crowley slipped the seed between them, watching her as she bit down on the sweet flesh of the seed. It was the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted. It tasted red. She had never tasted a color before but she could _feel _the plum and the ruby and the golden colors of the fruit against her tongue.

She did feel stronger, the room was in a little more focus and her stomach, which had been rumbling incessantly finally quieted. Crowley was watching her lips as she chewed.

There was only one thing left for her to do, and she knew that if she waited it would just be harder. She couldn't ask John for it, then he would be one step toward demonic transition and Hannah had given everything she had to give to save him from that. She had to save John from something. She tried to save him from himself that night when she was eighteen and he drove off into the night, but he ran away. For all his strength, he could be such a coward, always running away. So Hannah needed to do this for him, to protect him. She could protect him. So Hannah decided to man up.

She tilted her head enough that Crowley's still hovering thumb brushed against her lip. It felt good. She could practically taste the salt on his fingers, her lips were burning from the contact. She had been thirsty as the desert in a drought before the whiskey quenched her. She was famished before the pomegranate nourished her. She was burning with need, dying from it slowly, all of her skin was begging to be touched and handled and used.

Crowley cocked an eyebrow before placing his thumb against her lips again, demanding confirmation. She yielded to him as he pressed his finger past her lips where she flicked it with her tongue.

They both shuddered at the sensation. Crowley took a deep, hungry breath before stepping forwards and pushing her up, onto the desk and mercilessly shoving her thighs apart. He was just watching her, horny but restrained. Green eyes, hard like John's. Dark hair, shorter but not distractingly so. Fine lines across his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He could look like John if she squinted. He could feel like John if she let him.

She leaned forward and kissed him hard and fast, clutching at his business jacket, John wore suits when he pretended to be a fed. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him into her rubbing her pelvis against Crowley's.

"You don't have to do this now," Crowley said, but his hand was already disappearing down the front of her pants, flicking lightly, teasingly, over her hard button.

"Just get on with it." She moaned, breathily. Crowley shoved three fingers into her and Hannah let out a muffled scream at the ripping pain. Suddenly Crowley was pumping his fist in and out of her, filling the air with a sinfully loud wet squelching sound. And Hannah had no idea if it was because of the blood of her virginity running down her leg or if it was because she was so shamefully horny, but she was moaning and gasping with the pain and pleasure of it, clutching at Crowley's lapels as he harshly fist fucked her.

"You need to come," he groaned, and Hannah could feel his hard cock through his pants as it brushed against her thigh. "What do you need?" he groaned.

Hannah pushed him off of her and kicked off her pants, before turning and leaning over the desk. She looked over her shoulder to him and Crowley got the idea, unbuckling his belt and sliding up to her. Hannah rested her head against the wood of the desk and waited. After a second, realized that Crowley was just looking at her, spread legged and bleeding. She looked over her shoulder and saw him with his dick in his hand, working himself lazily as he watched her.

"I bet I feel better than I look, so fuck me already."

Crowley grinned at her and let his dick drop out of his hand, letting Hannah see it in all it's glory. Suddenly, the reason he shoved _three _fingers into her made perfect sense.

"So do I." said Crowley and Hannah watched him line himself before he had to squint her eyes and brace herself against the desk as the huge dick slid into her. "How does that feel, pet?"

"Stop talking." Hannah moaned and Crowley obeyed her as they started to rock together. She kept waiting for herself to get used to his monster dick but it never happened and each thrust hurt as beautifully as the first. He reached forward and started to touch her as he pumped into her and soon she was nothing more than a needy, heaping mess of moaning pleas.

"_Yes, John, yes, please, more, harder." _

"_Hannah" _Crowley moaned into her ear and Hannah didn't have time to fully appreciate the fact that he disguised his accent to sound more like the comforting graveled American drawl that she was craving because she was suddenly spasming with her climax.

He came soon after and Hannah felt him drop against her back. His come mixing with her blood and lubrication as they trailed down her legs.

* * *

John had been storming around the office for a while and he was just getting more and more pissed with every corner he turned. Another generic office hallway with more of those fucking _weird _people wandering around. Where Hannah found this demon and how she ever thought that this would be a good idea were lost on him.

Hannah.

John didn't even know what do with her anymore because everything felt dirty.

He had belonged here. He had deserved to be here for that time he yelled at Mary for coming home late, accused her of cheating because she was always so secretive about where she went some nights. So many secrets with Mary Winchester and John was an ass and an idiot so of course he accused her of cheating. Then she died and he realized that it didn't even _matter_. She wore his ring and she bore his _children _and sex was nothing. She could have gone out every night and fucked a different man every time and it wouldn't have even _mattered _because she already gave him everything when she placed the first of those two, beautiful boys in his arms. She loved him and she made a family with him and the rest didn't even matter.

He deserved to be in Hell for that time he yelled at Dean for leaving the door unlocked. Dean was seven and if John had been in his right mind he would have never thought that leaving the kid alone in a motel room with a toddler was even close to a reasonable idea. But John wasn't in his right mind, in fact, John didn't even know what his "right mind" looked like because anyone else would call him negligent and even abusive.

But the hunt just landed in his lap. It was too late to call for back up and any and all hunters and caregivers were at least a state away and this thing was killing innocent kids, even as he tucked the sleepy toddler in the bed and handed Dean the gun. It was bloody and John would never forget how the blood under his boots felt as he looked around at all the dead children. Two dozen, at least, pale and cold, soaking in a small lake of red blood, putrid as it began to decay. One little girl, Asian and small, even for her age, which John found out later was four, was wearing a set of teddy bear footsie pajamas. John had bought Dean the same pair at a thrift shop. They were sitting in a suitcase in his motel room with his boys. Sammy would be big enough for them in a couple of months.

John got back to the room, dumping the blood stained boots before he entered. The door gave with one try since his son, his _seven year old _had forgotten to lock it behind him. Dean was sitting at the table, dozing off, when John roared a terrible, furious, absolutely-scared-shitless roar. Dean leapt up, Sam started crying and a neighbor slammed against the wall, threatening to call the cops.

John lost his shit. Every marble he ever deluded himself into believing he had went out the window because he just lost it. He yelled, he threatened, he guilt tripped and Dean just took it like a man. Dean stood there, stony faced and said, "Sorry, sir."

And John had to go into the bathroom and cry because anything, any other reaction in the world would have been better than that. He had no idea how long he was in there. The shower water turned cold while he was under it but he didn't even really notice. He watched the water swirl around his bare feet and remembered the way that his boots had made waves in the pool of blood as he hunted that evil fucker.

He got out of the shower and dug through his suitcase, finding the pajamas and throwing them into the waste basket as if that would do anything at all. When he looked over to Sam and Dean, Sam had fallen back asleep but Dean watched the whole thing without saying a word. John didn't know how to apologize or explain or placate so he just dropped into the other bed and waited until morning since he knew sleep wouldn't find him like that.

Suddenly there was a small hand rubbing circles into his back, the same way he did to Sam when the toddler was upset.

"It's going to be ok, Daddy." Said Dean and John choked before rolling over and pulling his son into a bear hug. "It's all going to be ok, Dad." Dean said again and John let himself cry one single tear into his child's hair before patting him and sending him back to Sam's bed.

And John deserved Hell for letting things get too far with a sixteen year old girl. She walked and talked like a woman so John forgot that she wasn't. She was a kid. She was a kid who talked in terms of "love" and "forever" as if she knew what those words meant. She didn't know who she was, she didn't know what love was. She was even too young to realize that she didn't know how the world worked. She was relentless and hot and John let himself think it might be alright.

And now she was in Hell, looking for him. She didn't push those who loved her away. She didn't yell at her children or take things that were too pure for her dirty hands. She didn't deserve Hell. She was down here because of him. She was doing it, all of it, for him. She mutated herself, drank the water of Hell because she was a kid and didn't fucking know better and that was on him. He could give her what she thought she wanted. He could make love to her, finish the transition because if she was in Hell, the least he could do was stick around and keep her safe. He owed her that at least.

He heard a scream, high and feminine and Hannah's. John started running back, the office a maze of corridors and faceless suits, an illusion he was trapped in. He recognized the cold receptionist and made towards the ornate, wooden office door. Just as he reached out to grab the handle, the door opened for him.

Hannah stopped short, looking just as surprised to see him as he did to see her. She looked alright, all in one piece, at least. John heard Crowley's footsteps behind her and Hannah looked quickly down at the floor, shamefully. Crowley, however, made an exaggerated motion of zipping up his pants and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. His jacket was disheveled and Hannah's hair was a bit frizzier than he remembered seeing it a few hours ago.

John grabbed Crowley by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the wall.

"What did you do to her?"

"John," Hannah said softly, patiently. John dropped Crowley out of his grip at the sheer shock of Hannah's tone alone. She sounded defeated. John had never heard Hannah sound defeated. "It's done."

"Wha—?" John stammered, "No, please tell me you didn't, no, Hannah, no."

"I pretended he was you." She said softly and looked back down at the carpet as she walked away. She walked away, head hung to the floor and she didn't look back.

* * *

**That was that. See you in another three months, kids. Just kidding. Probably. I'm sorry for neglecting you!**


End file.
